The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830 – T.S. Ashton

  I picked up this book from a second-hand bookshop from the pile of stuff no-one wanted for a pound. The first reason I did so was, of course, the topic – I wanted an overview of the industrial revolution in England, and this book offered it. The short length (about 150 pages) was perfect, as I wanted to keep it brief. The fact that it was written by an academic and cited its sources was important to me as well, Ive been burned by baseless pop-history before. I didn't mind that it was about fifty years old and possibly outdated in a scholarly sense; I was not reading for theoretical arguments about the industrial revolution in England as much as I was reading for a historical retelling of the undisputed facts surrounding it.

On these points the book delivered. It didn’t linger on any topic too long, just outlining them. The author, T.S. Ashton, took a rather benign middle-of-the-road approach to most mentioned points of contention; choosing to describe debates more than participate in them. When the authors personal evaluation of a point was mentioned, it was clearly labelled. The themes described were broad. The first chapter, ‘Early Industry’, described the eighteenth century context, with special attention given to descriptions of the state of key sectors like the iron, coal, agricultural, and textile industries. The ‘Technical Innovation’ chapter then described the shifts these saw in terms of new technologies and systems of organisation – the emphasis on the latter being especially helpful to me, as I find that societal processes like the Ind. Rev. are too often reduced to technological changes, ignoring social changes and their influence. Aside from the introductions to specific industries’ technologies, this section also provided a discussion of pre-railway industrial infrastructure; I found finding out about the transitions between local economies, road oriented and canal oriented ones exiting. I did zone out whenever specific individuals were discussed at length, as it makes little difference to me if a machine was invented by a Watt or Arkwright or Sinclair; The author did however take the position that innovators were secondary to the societal conditions required for inventions, so these sections were thankfully short. 

The ‘Capital and Labour’ chapter can be split into two. The first half had some interesting things, particularly concerning the emergence of the banking system (It never occurred to me that a shortage of specific denominations of currency might cause such issues, but some of the solutions that dealt with this shortage were very impressive!). On the other hand, the later discussion of capital fell into a historical narrative hinging heavily on the periods of peace and war the UK found itself in; I know little about this historical period in the broader world, and so found it hard to follow. The discussion of labour was not focused solely on trade unions or similar as one might think; discussed were elements like the shifts of labour from the home to the factory, migration and the increases and decreases of child labour. In each industry such themes were described separately, as they saw different developments. Ashton ends on the idea that this period saw a gradual integration of regional labour markets into a national one. 

This is followed by the misleadingly named ‘Individualism vs Lassier Faire’ chapter. First, the concept of individualism as a sole driver of the revolution is rebuked by tracing the evolution of many different social organisations, cartel-like structures, unions, etc., present in all levels of society and all industries in differing forms. The concept of a lassier faire economic policy is less sharply attacked; here the issue taken by Ashton is moreso that the state is viewed as having been in retreat from the market long before and after the time period being discussed. In discussing Smith and Malthus’s influence, Ashton points out that “...Englishmen have too much good sense to walk by the light of abstractions…”, a sentence that seems to have aged somewhat poorly with the advent of neoliberalism lmao. The discussion of the various social organisations in this chapter was helpful, but I didn’t find the arguments overly interesting.

Finally, the book ends with ‘The Course of Economic Change’. I didn’t find this last chapter particularly useful; It contextualised the Ind. Rev. of the UK within the broader world. Some interesting things were said on the UK’s balance of trade with the rest of the world and changes within this. The broad arguments of ‘The industrial revolution was bad, actually’ and ‘The industrial revolution was good, actually’ are introduced, with Ashton favouring the latter position while admitting many social ills resulted. This section seemed underdeveloped and outdated, and so Ill ignore it.

I learnt a lot about specific industries and forms of social organisation, and for that id recommend the book, as it does a good job of introducing them clearly. I would ignore some of the arguments and chapters, or at least not take them at face value. I wish I had written down some of the coolest bits of information to include here, but I didn’t think of it at the time and am too lazy to do now – will include fun facts next time I read a book, not here.