Tag Archives: Industry

England was wealthy long before the Empire and the Slave Trade

Researchers at Warwick University led by  economist Professor Stephen Broadberry have concluded that Mediaeval England,  far from being a land of poverty-stricken peasants oppressed by a small aristocratic  elite,  was a prosperous land with a higher average per capita income more than double that of the poorest nations in the world today*  The results are published by the University of Warwick’s Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)in  a paper entitled British Economic Growth 1270-1870. www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/broadberry/wp/britishgdplongrun8a.pdf

The researchers  took as a benchmark an annual income of  $400 annually (as expressed in 1990 international dollars) , a measure often  used as a measure of “bare bones subsistence”.  They estimated  English per capita incomes in the late Middle Ages were around  $1,000 (again as expressed in 1990 dollars) and that even just before the Black Death, which first struck in 1348/49, they were  more than $800 using the same 1990 dollar measure.  This is significant because incomes rose significantly after the Black Death because of a dire shortage of labour.

In an interview with Science Daily  Professor  Broadberry,  said:

“Our work sheds new light on England’s economic past, revealing that per capita incomes in medieval England were substantially higher than the “bare bones subsistence” levels experienced by people living in poor countries in our modern world. The majority of the British population in medieval times could afford to consume what we call a “respectability basket” of consumer goods that allowed for occasional luxuries. By the late Middle Ages, the English people were in a position to afford a varied diet including meat, dairy produce and ale, as well as the less highly processed grain products that comprised the bulk of the “bare bones subsistence” diet.”

He also said: “Of course this paper focuses only on average per capita incomes. We also need to have a better understanding of the distribution of income in medieval England, as there will have been some people living at bare bones subsistence, and at times this proportion could have been quite substantial. We are now beginning research to construct social tables which will also reveal the distribution of income for some key benchmark years in that period”

“The research provides the first annual estimates of GDP for England between 1270 and 1700 and for Great Britain between 1700 and 1870. Far more data are available for the pre-1870 period than is widely realised. Britain after the Norman conquest was a literate and numerate society that generated substantial written records, many of which have survived. As a result, the research was aided by a wide variety of records — among them manorial records, tithes, farming records, and probate records.”

Professor Broadberry further said that: “Our research shows that the path to the Industrial Revolution began far earlier than commonly has been understood. A widely held view of economic history suggests that the Industrial Revolution of 1800 suddenly took off, in the wake of centuries without sustained economic growth or appreciable improvements in living standards in England from the days of the hunter-gatherer. By contrast, we find that the Industrial Revolution did not come out of the blue. Rather, it was the culmination of a long period of economic development stretching back as far as the late medieval period.”  (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101205234308.htm)

Broadly, there is nothing tremendously new here, although the research  includes interesting work on the quantification of wealth in England before the Industrial Revolution with for the first time annual estimates of English GDP between 1270-1700.  From the advent of printing,   it was common for travellers in England who wrote and published  their experiences there to comment on the wealth of England generally  and the good condition of the poorer classes in particular.  Middle English literary works such as the Canterbury Tales and Piers Ploughman  (both 14th Century) also paint a picture of an England far from poor. To those literary sources can be added the evidence of the many magnificent mediaeval cathedrals and the plentiful supply of mediaeval castles  which both speak of considerable national wealth.

As for the notion that the Industrial Revolution suddenly sprang into the world  newly minted around 1760, this has always been treated by serious historians as a nonsense. It was clearly the culmination of a long period of economic accretion and social, legal and political  evolution.  (see  http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/england-and-the-only-bootstrapped-industrial-revolution-2/)

The estimates of mediaeval per capita income may even produce a false comparison between that time and place and the poorest countries today. Most would have had land to work on their own account, whether that be as a freeman or serf, and with that land would have come a place to live in. The same does not apply to the poorest countries today.

If there is nothing startlingly novel, the research is immensely valuable as an antidote to the idea constantly promoted in the mainstream media  that England only became rich because of the empire and slave trade and before those events was a poor and insignificant country.

*Poorest nations today per  capita income at 1990 dollar values – Zaire $249, Burundi $479, Niger $514, Central African Republic $536, Comoro Islands $549, Togo $606, Guinea Bissau $617, Guinea $628, Sierra Leone $686, Haiti at $686, Chad $706, Zimbabwe $779,  Afghanistan $869 

England and the only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution

Of  all the social changes  which have occurred in human history,  none has been  so  profound as the process of  industrialisation.  The  two previous  great general  amendments  to  human  life  –  farming   and urbanisation – pale into insignificance. Before industrialisation,  man lived  primarily  from  the  land and  animals  whether  from  farming, husbandry or hunter-gathering. In the most advanced civilisations,  the vast majority of populations lived outside large towns and cities. Even in  industrialising England a majority of the population derived  their living  directly  from the land as late as the 1830s.  France  did  not become a predominantly urban nation until the 1930s.  

With  industrialisation  came  not  merely a  change  in  the  material circumstances, but profound social alteration. There arose much greater opportunity  to move from the small world of the village.  The  massive increase  in wealth eventually made even the poor rich enough  to  have aspirations.  Sufficient numbers of the wealthier classes became guilty enough  about  abject  poverty existing beside great  wealth  that  the condition  of  the poor was further mitigated  by  greater  educational opportunity,  welfare provision and legislation regulating the abuse of workers  by  employers.    Political  horizons  were  expanded  by  the extension of the franchise.  

The  industrial revolution altered the balance of power throughout  the world.  David Landes “In the wealth and Poverty of  Nations”  describes the effect succinctly:  “The industrial revolution made some  countries richer,  others (relatively) poorer; or more accurately, some countries made an industrial revolution and became rich;  and others did not  and stayed  poor.”(p168).  Prior  to industrialisation,  the  disparity  in wealth  between  states,  regions and even  continents  was  relatively small.  Come the Industrial Revolution and massive disparities begin to appear.  For  Dr  Landes,  it  is  to  the  success  or  otherwise   in industrialising  which is the primary cause of present  disparities  in national wealth.

All  of this tremendous amendment to human existence occurred   because the  one  and  only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution  took  place  in England.  Why  England?  David Landes in the  “Wealth  and  Poverty  of Nations”  sees the  historical process of industrialisation as twofold. First,    comes     a  pre-industrial  preparatory  period   in   which  irrationality  of thought is  gradually replaced by scientific   method and what he calls “autonomy  of  intellectual inquiry”(p201),  that  is, thought    divorced   from   unquestioned   reliance   on    authority, irrationality,  especially superstition.   At the same  time  technology begins to be  something more than by-guess-and-by-God. This gives birth to industrialisation  by creating both the intellectual climate and the acquired knowledge,  both scientific and technological,  necessary  for the transformation from traditional to modern society. It is as good an explanation   as  any  and  fits  the  flow  of  England’s   historical development.

It is not utterly implausible to suggest that without England the world might have had no Industrial Revolution. Those who would scoff at  such a  proposition should consider the cold facts:  even with  England  and Britain’s   example to follow no other nation matched   her  industrial development until the 1870′s and  then the first  country to do so  was a  state  ultimately derived from  England,  namely the  USA.  Nor  did  England produce an industrial revolution only in England, they actively exported and financed it throughout the world, for example, most of the European  railway  building  of the years 1840-70  was  the  result  of British engineers and money.  

Some  may  point to scientific advance in Europe from 1600  onwards  as reason  to  believe  that industrialisation would  have  been  achieved without England. It is true that Europe advanced scientifically  in the seventeenth  and eighteenth centuries,  but scientific knowledge is  no guarantee  of  technological progress.  Moreover, a good deal  of  that scientific advance came from England.   Nor does  scientific  knowledge  have  any natural connection  with the severe social upheaval  required for  a transformation from the land-working  dominated   pre-industrial  state to capitalism.  Indeed,  the landowners of pre-industrial  Europe had  a vested interest in not promoting industrial advance.   Moreover, in many parts of Europe,  particularly the East,  feudal burdens became greater not less after 1500.  This was so even in as advanced a country as  France.   Consequently,  the   widespread  social  mobility   which historians  have generally thought necessary to promote a  bootstrapped  industrial revolution simply did not exist in  Europe at the  beginning of  the  British  Industrial revolution. Even  the  country  most  like England in its commercial  development, the Netherlands, became socially and politically  ossified in the Eighteenth century,  with a bourgeoisie developing  into an aristocracy and representative government  narrowed to what was in effect a parliament of nobles. 

There will be those – Scots in particular – who will chafe at the  idea that  the industrial revolution was dependent upon England.  The  facts are against them.

Scotland  before  the union with England (1707) was a  remarkably  poor state.  Nor,  despite its much vaunted educational system –  supposedly much   the  superior  of  England  –  had  it  produced  many  men   of international importance. Read a general  history of Europe, either old or  modern,   and you will  find precious few Scots mentioned on  their own account before the Union.    The names John Eringa and Duns  Scotus with  perhaps a nod to John Knox are the best the reader may hope  for, and  the former two had to leave Scotland to make their names.  If  any other  Scotsman who lived before the Union  is mentioned,  he  will  be noticed  only  because  of his connection with  another  country,  most commonly England.   It required the union with England to give Scots  a larger stage to act upon.  Without the union,  the likes of David Hume, Adam  Smith  and James Watt would in all probability  have  been  roses which  bloomed  unseen in the desert air.   That is not  to  decry  the talents and  contributions  of Scots, which are considerable, merely to describe a necessary sociological condition  for their realisation.

Let  me  demonstrate how much of an English enterprise  the  Industrial Revolution was by using the example of the development of steam  power. Contrary  to many a schoolboy’s imagining,  James  Watt did not  invent the steam engine. That was the province of Englishmen.  The Marquess of Worcester  may have produced a working steam engine on his  estates  in 1663;  James Savery certainly did in 1698. This was improved by another Englishman,  Thomas Newcomen.  Their machines were crude beam  engines, but the technological  Rubicon had been crossed.

It is true that the Scotsman Watt’s  improvements to the steam engine – the  conversion of linear to rotary action and  the introduction  of  a separate condenser – were profoundly important and provided the   means to  extend the use of steam engines from their limited applications  in pumping water from mines. But it should be noted that he had to come to England  to achieve his improvements through his association  with   an English  entrepreneur of genius,  Mathew Boulton,    who at  his   Soho works  in Birmingham had probably the best engineering facilities  then in  the  world.  It was also Boulton who pressed Watt  to  develop  the conversion  of linear to rotary action.  It is worth adding  that  Watt was  a timid,  retiring personality who left to his own  devices  would probably  have  achieved  little of practical  consequence.   Moreover, within  a  generation  of Watt’s improvements,  the  English  engineer, Richard Trevithick had greatly improved on Watt’s engine  by  producing a high pressure steam engine, arguably a more important advance than Watt’s innovations because without it steam engines would have remained large and seriously underpowered.. static installations unable to drive vehicles such as trains and ships..

But before steam could play its full role there had to be a  revolution in  iron  production.  This was accomplished  by   Englishmen.    Until Abraham Darby began smelting iron with coke made from coal in the early 1700s,  iron making was an expensive and uncertain business carried  on in small foundries using charcoal to fire the kilns (an ironmaker named Dudley claimed to have used coal successfully for smelting as early  as  1619  but died without establishing a business to carry the  work  on).  Compared with coal,  charcoal was in short supply.  Worse, it did  not produce  the same intensity of heat as coal converted into coke.  Darby and  his son solved the basic problem of smelting with coke  made  from coal. Henry Cort’s puddling process  allowed cast-iron to be refined to remove the brittleness. A little later Benjamin Huntsman improved steel making. In the middle of the next century the  Bessemer  revolutionised steel  production  to such a degree that its  price  fell  dramatically enough  to  make steel no longer a luxury but the  common  material  of construction.  All these advances were made by Englishmen.

Large scale organisation is also intellectually demanding.  If a  ready and cheaper supply of iron was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution,  so  was the very idea of large scale  manufactories  using machines.  Undertakings employing hundreds of men on one site were  not unknown before the 18th Century – a clothier named Jack of Newbury had  a factory employing 500 in Tudor times –   but  they were very rare.   In 18th  Century England  such enterprises became if not  commonplace,  at least   not  extraordinary.  By the next century they  were  the  norm.  Industry  became for the first time geared to a mass market.   Nor  was  this  new  method  of  manufacturing confined to  the  necessities  and banalities of life.   Factories such as  Josiah Wedgewood’s at  Etruria  manufactured  high quality and imaginative china directed  deliberately at  the growing middle classes.  All the most successful  18th  century machines for mass production were  developed by Englishmen. Arkwright’s water frame, Crompton’s mule, James Hargreaves spinning jenny. 

Once  the  first  blast of the industrial revolution  had  passed,  the fundamental fine tuning was undertaken by Englishmen,  with men such as Whitworth  leading  the  way with machine tools and  new  standards  of exactness in measurement and industrial cutting and finishing. All very boring to the ordinary man, but utterly essential for the foundation of a successful industrial society.

Many   vital industries since have originated in  England.  To  take  a few,  George  Stephenson  produced the  first  practical  railway  (the railway  probably  did  more  than anything  to  drive  the  Industrial Revolution because it allowed a true national market to operate  within England);   Brunel  issued in the age of the  ocean  going   steamship;   William  Perkins laid the foundation for the modern  chemical  industry by discovering the first  synthetic dye;  the first electronic computer was  designed  in  Britain,   after the  theoretical  foundations had been laid  by   the Englishman,  Alan Turing.  (In the previous century another Englishman, Charles  Babbage,  designed  but did not finished  building  the  first programmable machine.) 

Alongside the development of manufacturing ran that of agriculture. The enclosure movement was already well advanced by 1700. By the  middle of the   nineteenth  century  it  was  effectively  finished.  Not  merely feudalism but the peasantry were gone. The old,  inefficient open-field system was a dead letter. With enclosure came agricultural  innovation. In  the  eighteenth  century we have  Jethro  Tull,  whose  seed  drill greatly reduced the amount of seed needed for sowing,   Robert Bakewell  whose selective breeding greatly increased the size of sheep and cattle and “Turnip”  Townsend who greatly increased crop efficiency by various mean  such  as  the  marling of sandy soil.   The  importance  of  such developments cannot be overestimated because the population of  Britain rose so dramatically  in the next century. 

The  technological inventions and discoveries made by the English   are legion. The list below gives  some idea of their importance and range.

Thomas Savery (1650-1715). Invented the first commercial steam engine -a steam pump. 

Thomas  Newcomen (1663-1729).  Improved Savery’s engine by  introducing the piston.  

Richard  Trevithick  (1771 – 1833). Invented the  high  pressure  steam engine. Built the first steam locomotive.

George Stephenson (1781-1848). Made the railway a practical reality. 

Abraham Darby (1678-1717). Developed the process of smelting iron using coke.

Sir Henry Bessemer,  1813-1898. Devised a process for making steel on a large scale.

James Hargreaves (1722-1778). Invented the spinning jenny.

John Kay  (1733-1764). Invented the  flying shuttle.

Samuel Crompton  (1753-1827). Invented  the spinning mule.

Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) Invented the waterframe.

Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823). Invented the power loom.

John  Harrison  (1693-1776) First to build watches accurate  enough  to solve the longitude measurement problem.

Edward Jenner (1743-1823). Developed vaccination.

Joseph Lister (1827-1912). Developed  antisepsis.

Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887) standardised  screw threads,  produced first true  plane surfaces in metal, developed ductile steel.

Henry Maudslay (1771-1831).   Invented the screw-cutting lathe and  the first  bench  micrometer  that  was capable of  measuring  to  one  ten thousandth of an inch. 

Joseph Bramah (1748-1814). Invented the hydraulic press.

John Walker (1781- 1859).  Invented the first friction matches.

John  Smeaton  (1724-1792) made the first  modern  concrete  (hydraulic cement).

Joseph  Aspdin  (1788-1855) invented Portland Cement,  the  first  true artificial cement.

Humphrey Davy (1778-1829).  Invented the first electric light,  the arc lamp.

Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Invented the electric motor.

Isambard  Kingdom  Brunel (1806-1859).   Built the first  really  large  steam ships – the  Great Britain, Great Western, Great Eastern.

Sir  Isaac  Pitman (1813-1897).  Devised the most  widely  used  modern shorthand.

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802 – 1875).  Developed an electric telegraph at the same time as Samuel Morse.

Rowland Hill (1795-1879). Invented adhesive postage stamps.

John Herschel (1792-1871). Invented the blueprint.

William  Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877)  Invented the   negative-positive photography and latent image shorter exposure time.

Sir  Joseph  William Swan (1828-1914).  Invented the  dry  photographic plate.  Invented, concurrently with Edison, the  light bulb.

Sir William Henry Perkin (1838-1907). Created the first artificial  dye –  aniline  purple  or  mauveine – and  the  first   artificial  scent, coumarin.  

Alexander  Parkes  (1813-90).  Created the  first  artificial  plastic, Parkensine.

Sir   George  Cayley  (1773-1857).   Worked  out  the   principles   of aerodynamics,  his  “On  Ariel Navigation” showed  that  a  fixed  wing aircraft  with a power system for propulsion,  and a tail to assist  in the control of the airplane, would be the best way to allow man to fly. Also invented the caterpillar track.

Sir  Frank  Whittle  (1907-1996).  Took out the  first  patents  for  a Turbojet.

Sir Christopher Cockerell (1910-1999). Invented the hovercraft.

Charles  Babbage (1792-1871).  Worked out the basic principles  of  the computer. 

Alan Turin (1912-1954). Widely considered the father of modern computer science – worked out the principles of the digital computer. 

Tim  Berners-Lee  (1955-).  Invented the World Wide Web  defining  HTML (hypertextmarkup language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators).

England and the Enlightenment

 In his book “Enlightenment:  Britain and the creation of the modern  world”, the  historian Roy Porter remarks how peculiar it is  “that  historians have  so  little  to say about the role of  English  thinkers   in  the European  Enlightenment  as a whole” (p3).  Peculiar  indeed  when  one considers  the  English  intellectual personnel of the  17th  and  18th centuries and the  high  reputation  English institutions and ideas had amongst    the  leading  lights  of  the   continental   Enlightenment, especially  in  the  country  which is  generally  represented  as  the powerhouse of Enlightenment thinking,  France.   Here is the philosophe of philosophes,  Voltaire,  at full Anglophile admire: “The English are the only people on earth who have been able to prescribe the limits  of Kings by resisting them;  and who,  by a series of struggles,  have  at last  established  that  wise  Government,  where  the  prince  is  all powerful  to  do  good,  and  at the  same  time   is  restrain’d  from committing evil;   where the Nobles are great without insolence,   tho’ there  are no vassals;  and where the People  share in  the  government  without confusion.”  Lettres philosophiques on Lettres Anglais (1775).

 A  strong argument can be made for the English Enlightenment  not  only existing  but  occurring  a century or so  before  that  of  any  other nation  and subsequently providing much of the  basis  for the  general Enlightenment movement.  

Consider these figures from  the seventeenth century:   William Gilbert (science,   especially  magnetism),   Francis  Bacon  (philosophy   and science),  Thomas Hobbes (philosophy), John Locke (philosophy),  Thomas Harrington     (nascent economics     and    sociology),   William  Harvey (biology/medicine),    Robert   Hooke   (polymathic    scientist    and technologist),  John Rae (biologist), Edmund Halley (astronomy),  Isaac Newton  (mathematics and physics).  What did they have in common  other than  intellectual distinction?   They were all driven by the  idea  of reason,  by the belief that the world could be  understood  rationally. That  is  the  real  essence  of  the  Enlightenment,   the  belief  in rationality,  in particular,  the belief that the world is  subject  to  physical laws, that God does not intervene capriciously, that the world is not governed by magic.  Such ideas did not preclude a God or prevent an intense relationship with the putatively divine, but they did encase God   within  a  rational system of thought in which  His   action  was limited, voluntarily or otherwise. Newton may have been utterly fixated with the numerology of the Bible but he believed the world was  ordered according to physical laws.    From  the belief that the universe is organised  rationally  comes  the corollary  that it can be understood,  that everything is  governed  by laws which can be discovered by men. This idea pre-dated Newton, but it was his ideas,  most notably his laws of motion and theory of  gravity, that elevated the idea to almost a secular religion.   During  the next century   intellectuals   took  the  example  of   Newton’s   inanimate mechanistic physical world and extrapolated the idea to every aspect of existence, from biology to philosophy  to social policy. If only enough was known,  if only enough effort was made,  then everything,  of  this world  at least,   could be understood and controlled  and   everything could be the subject of rational decision making.      

The 18th  century Enlightenment  had another aspect,  an  association with the  democratic or at least a wish that the power of kings  should be greatly curtailed – the Voltaire quote given above is a good example of the mentality.  This also  has its roots in England.  The ferment of the  English  Civil war  not only produced  proto-democratic  political movements  such as the Levellers, it also started  Parliament along the road  of being more than a subordinate constitutional player by forcing it to act as not only  a legislature but as an executive.  Stir  in  the experience  of  the Protectorate,  simmer for  30 years or so   of  the restored  Stuart kings,  mix in  the Glorious Revolution of 1689  which resulted  in  the Bill of Rights and established the English  crown  as being in the gift of Parliament  and  season with half a century of the German  Georges  and   you have the British (in  reality  the  English) constitution   which was so admired by Voltaire,  who  thought it quite perfect,  and  which  gave the American colonists the  inspiration  for their   own political arrangements (president = king,  Senate =  Lords, House  of Representatives = Commons,  with a  Constitution and Bill  of Rights  heavily influenced by the English Bill of Rights.)

The beginnings of English intellectual history

English intellectual history is a long one.  It can reasonably be  said to  begin  in  the early eighth  century   with  Bede’s  Ecclesiastical  History of the English,  which amongst other things firmly  establishes the  English  as  a people before England as  a  kingdom  existed  (“At present  there  are  in Britain…five languages  and  four  nations  – English, British, Irish and Picts…” Book One).  

In the late ninth century comes Alfred the Great,  a  king  whose reign was  one  of  constant struggle against the Danes,   but   who  thought  enough of learning to teach himself to read as an adult and then engage in  translations  into Old English of  devotional works  such  as  Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care,   Bede’s Ecclesiastical History  and Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy.  It is difficult to think of any other monarch anywhere who showed such a practical concern for learning.

From Alfred’s reign  comes the Anglo-Saxon Journal (ASJ),  a work  also written in Old English.  (There are nine  surviving versions written at different  places,  eight of which are in Old English with the odd  man out being in  Old English with a Latin translation).   The journal   is  a  history/myth  of  Britain and a narrative  of   the  settlement   of  Anglo-Saxons  within it  until the time of Alfred and then  a  putative  record of and commentary on the great events  of English life from  the time  of  Alfred until the middle of the 12th century  (like  all  suchmedieval works the veracity of the ASJ is questionable, but at worst it gives a flavour of the mentality of those living at the time). The work is  unique  in  medieval Europe for  its scope  and  longevity  and  is particularly  noteworthy  for  the  fact that it  was  written  in  the vernacular throughout the three centuries or so of its existence,  this at  a time when the normal language for  writing in Western Europe  was Latin. 

The    Norman   Conquest   subordinated   the   English    politically, linguistically  and socially  for the better part of three   centuries,but  it  did  not kill English  intellectual  endeavour.   Those  three centuries  of oppression saw the emergence of  many of the ideas  which were later to produce the modern world.  John of Salisbury   produced a work  on politics (Policraticus 1159)  which was “the first attempt  in the  Middle Ages at an extended and systematic treatment  of  political philosophy”  (G  H Sabine A History of Political Theory p246)  and  one which  argued  for  a form of limited monarchy  and  the  overthrow  of tyrants,  views  given  practical English  expression  in  Magna  Carta (1215). The period was also noteworthy for the strong showing of annals and histories,  most notably those of Eadmer (Historia Novorum  or  The History of Recent Events – it covered the  period 950-1109),  Henry  of Huntingdon (Historia Anglorum or  History of the English 5BC-1129)  an  Matthew  Paris (Chronica Majora).   In addition,   the Common  Law  was formed,   English  became  once  more  a  literary  language  (Chaucer, Langland),   John  Wycliffe  laid  the  intellectual  roots   of    the Reformation and,  perhaps  most impressively, ideas which were later to provide the basis for a true  science emerged.

Quantifying English intellectual accomplishment

In  his  book  “Human  Accomplishment”   the  American  Charles  Murray calculates  the  contribution  to  civilisation  made  by   individuals throughout  history  up until 1950.  To give his calculations  as  much objectivity  as possible he measures  the amount of attention given  to an  individual   by  specialists in their  field in   sources  such  as  biographical  dictionaries – put crudely, the greater the frequency  of mention and the larger the space devoted to an individual,  the  higher they score.

Murray  quantifies   achievements  under  the  headings  of   astronomy (Galileo  and  Kepler  tied  for  first  place),  biology  (Darwin  and Aristotle),  chemistry (Lavoisier),  earth sciences  (Lyell),   physics (Newton  and  Einstein),   mathematics  (Euler),   medicine   (Pasteur, Hippocrates  and  Koch),   technology  (Edison  and  Watt),    combined scientific (Newton), Chinese philosophy (Confucious), Indian philosophy (Sankara), Western  philosophy (Aristotle), Western music (Beethoven and Mozart),  Chinese painting  (Gu  Kaizhi  and  Zhao  Mengfu),  Japanese painting  (Sesshu,  Sotatsu and  Korin),   Western  art  (Michelangelo), Arabic  literature,  (al-Mutanabbi) Chinese literature (Du Fu),  Indian literature  (Kalidasa),   Japanese  literature  (Basho  and  Chikamatsu Monzaemon), Western literature (Shakespeare).  

Objections have been made to Murray’s methodology such as the fact that many  of the great achievements of the past,  especially in  the  arts, have  been anonymous,  which give it a bias towards the modern  period, and fears that it has a built-in Western bias –  the  representation of  non-Western  figures in the science  and technology  categories  is minimal.   Nothing can be done about anonymity – it is  worth  pointing out  that the majority of those heading the categories lived  at  least several  centuries  ago  – but  Murray  substantially   guards  against pro-Western  bias with the breadth and number of his sources and it  is simply  a fact that science and advanced technology arose only  in  the  past few centuries and that both are essentially Western  achievements. It  is  also noteworthy that Murray’s  method only places  one  of  his fellow   countrymen  at  number  one  in  any  category    (Edison   in technology).  If  any bias exists it is unlikely to  be  conscious.  At worst,  Murray’s  findings  can be seem as a fair  rating   of  Western achievement.

The list of those heading the various categories (see second  paragraph above)   suggests  that  Murray’s method is pretty  sound  despite  any possible methodological  shortcomings,  because those who come top  are all men of extreme achievement.  There might be arguments over  whether Aristotle should take precedence over Plato or Kant,   but no one could honestly argue that  Aristotle was an obviously unworthy winner of first place in the philosophy category.

Of the 13 categories which  can include Westerners (they are  obviously  excluded  from  non-European  literature  and  art),   Englishmen are indisputed firsts or share  first place with one other in four: biology Darwin with  Aristotle;   Physics  Newton  with  Einstein;   combined scientific  Newton alone;  Western literature Shakespeare  alone.   No other  nation  has  more  than two representatives  at  the  top  of  a category.  The thirteen Western  ncluding categories have a total of 18 people in  sole or joint first place.  England  has nearly a quarter of those  in first place and more than a quarter of the 15 who  are  drawn from the modern period, say 1500 AD onwards.   

Apart  from those coming first,   the English show strongly in most  of the  Western qualifying categories (especially in physics – 9 out of the top 20, technology – 8 out of the top twenty – and Western literature). The  major  exceptions  are   Western art  and   music,  where  English representation  is mediocre.   I think most people who think about  the matter  at  all  would feel those  quantified cultural  strengths  and  weaknesses represent the reality of English history and society.     

The fact that England shows so strongly in Murray’s exercise  gives the lie  to  the common representation of the  English  as  unintellectual. Moreover,  there is much more to human intellectual accomplishment than the fields covered by Murray,  most notably the writing of  history and the social sciences,  areas in which England has  been at the forefront throughout the modern period: think Gibbon,  Macaulay,  Herbert Spencer and Keynes.

England and the only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution

Of all the social changes which have occurred in human  history, none has been so profound as the process of  industrialisation. The two previous great general amendments  to human life – farming and urbanisation – pale into  insignificance. Before industrialisation, man lived primarily from the land and animals whether from farming, husbandry or  hunter-gathering. Even in the most advanced civilisations, the vast majority of populations lived outside large towns and cities. In England, the most advanced state, a majority of the population derived their living directly from the land as late as the 1830s. France did not become a predominantly urban nation until the 1930s.

With industrialisation came not merely a change in the material circumstances, but profound social alteration. There  arose vastly greater opportunity to move from the small world of the village. The massive increase in wealth  eventually made even the poor rich enough to have aspirations. Sufficient numbers of the wealthier classes  became guilty enough about abject poverty existing beside great wealth that the condition of the poor was further  mitigated by greater educational opportunity, welfare provision and legislation regulating the abuse of workers by employers. Political horizons were expanded by the extension  of the franchise.

The industrial revolution altered the balance of power throughout the world. David Landes “In the wealth and Poverty of Nations” describes the effect succinctly: “The industrial revolution made some countries richer, others (relatively)  poorer; or more accurately, some countries made an industrial revolution and became rich; and others did not and stayed  poor.” (p168). Prior to industrialisation, the disparity in wealth between states, regions and even continents was relatively  small. Come the Industrial Revolution and massive disparities begin to appear. For Dr Landes, it is to the success or otherwise in industrialising which is the primary cause of  present disparities in national wealth.

All of this tremendous amendment to human existence occurred because the one and only bootstrapped Industrial Revolution took place in England. Indeed, without England the world might have had no Industrial Revolution. Those who would scoff at such a proposition should consider the cold facts:  even with England and Britain’s example to follow no other nation matched her industrial development until the 1870′s and then the first country to do so was a state ultimately derived from England, namely the USA. Moreover, England and eventually Britain did not merely produce an industrial revolution, they actively exported and financed it throughout the world. For example, most of the European railway building of the years 1840-70 was the result of British engineers and money.

Some may point to scientific advance in Europe from 1600 onwards as reason to believe that industrialisation would  have been achieved without England. It is true that Europe advanced scientifically in the seventeenth and eighteenth  centuries, but scientific knowledge is no guarantee of technological progress. Moreover, a good deal of that scientific advance came from England. Nor does scientific knowledge have any natural connection with the severe social upheaval required for a transformation from the land dominated pre-industrial state to capitalism. Indeed, the  landowners of pre-industrial Europe had a vested interest in not promoting industrial advance. Moreover, in many parts of  Europe, particularly the East, feudal burdens became greater not less after 1500. This was so even in as advanced a  country as France. Consequently, the widespread social mobility which historians have generally thought necessary to promote a bootstrapped industrial revolution simply did not exist in Europe at the beginning of the British  Industrial revolution. Even the country most like England in its commercial development, the Netherlands, became socially and politically ossified in the Eighteenth century, with a bourgeoise developing into an aristocracy and representative government narrowed to what was in effect a parliament of nobles.

There will be those – Scots in particular – who will chafe at  the idea that the British industrial revolution was dependent upon England. The facts are against them.

Scotland before the union with England (1707) was a remarkably poor state. Nor, despite its much vaunted  educational system – supposedly much the superior of England – had it produced many men of international importance. Read  a general history of Europe, either old or modern, and you will find precious few Scots mentioned on their own account.  The names John Eringa and Duns Scotus with perhaps a nod to John Knox are the best the reader may hope for, and the former two had to leave Scotland to make their names. If any other Scotsman who lived before the union is mentioned, he will be noticed only because of his connection with another country, most commonly England. It required the union with England to give Scots a larger platform to act upon. Without  the union, the likes of David Hume, Adam Smith and even James Watt would in all probability have been roses which bloomed unseen in the desert air. That is not to decry the talents or contributions of Scots, which are considerable, merely to describe a necessary sociological condition for their full display.

Let us suppose that the union had never occurred. What then? All the evidence suggests that the first industrial  revolution would still have occurred when it did, perhaps slightly slower or with a different emphasis.

Let me demonstrate how much of an English enterprise the Industrial Revolution was by taking the Dragnet approach  (“Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts”). Take steam power. It is the epitome of the industrial revolution. Contrary to  many a schoolboy’s imagining, James Watt did not invent the steam engine. That was the province of Englishmen, The  Marquess of Worcester may have produced a working steam engine on his estates in 1663. James Savery certainly did by 1698. This was improved by another Englishman, Thomas Newcomen. Their machines were crude beam engines, but the technological Rubicon had been crossed.

It is true that the Scotchman, Watt’s, improvements to the steam engine – the conversion of linear to rotary action and   the introduction of a separate condenser – were profoundly important and provided the means to extend the use of steam  engines from their limited applications in pumping water from mines. But it should be noted that he had to come to England to achieve his improvements through the patronage of an Englishman, Mathew Boulton, who in his Soho works in Birmingham had probably the best engineering facilities then in the world. Moreover, within a generation of Watt’s improvements, the English engineer, Richard Trevithick had greatly improved on Watt by producing a non-condensing high pressure steam engine,

But before steam could play its full role there had to be a revolution in iron production. This was accomplished by Englishmen. Until Abraham Darby began smelting iron with coke made from coal in the early 1700s, iron making was an  expensive and uncertain business carried on in small foundries using charcoal to fire the kilns (an ironmaker  named Dudley claimed to have used coal successfully for smelting as early as 1619 but died without establishing a  business to carry the work on). Compared with coal, charcoal was in short supply. Worse, it did not produce the same  intensity of heat as coal converted into coke. Darby and his son solved the basic problem of smelting with coke made from coal. Henry Cort’s puddling process allowed cast-iron to be refined to remove the brittleness. A little later Benjamin Huntsman improved steel making. In the middle of the next century the Bessemer revolutionised steel production to such a degree that its price fell dramatically enough to make steel no longer a luxury but the common material of construction. All these advances were made by Englishmen.

 If a ready and cheaper supply of iron was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution, so was the very idea  of large scale manufactories using machines. Undertakings employing hundreds of men on one site were not unknown before the 18th century – a clothier named Jack of Newbury had a factory employing 500 in Tudor times – but they very rare.  In 18th century England such enterprises became if not commonplace, at least not extraordinary. By the next century they were the norm. Industry became for the first time geared to a mass market. Nor was this new method of   manufacturing confined to the necessities and banalities of  life. Factories such as Josiah Wedgewood’s at Etruria manufactured high quality and imaginative china directed deliberately at the growing middle classes. All the most  successful 18 century machines for mass production were developed by Englishmen. Arkwright’s water frame, Crompton’s  mule, James Hargreaves spinning jenny.

Once the first blast of the industrial revolution had passed, the fundamental fine tuning was undertaken by Englishmen,  with men such as Whitworth leading the way with machine tools and new standards of exactness in measurement and industrial cutting and finishing. All very boring to most, but utterly essential for the foundation of a successful  industrial society.

Many vital industries since have originated in England. To take a few. George Stephenson produced the first practical  railway (the railway probably did more than anything to drive the Industrial Revolution because it allowed a true national market to operate within England), Brunel issued in the age of the ocean going steamship. William Perkins laid the foundation for a vast part of the chemical industry by discovering the first synthetic dye. The first electronic  computer was designed in Britain, after theoretical  conception by the Englishman, Alan Turing. In the previous  century another Englishman, Charles Babbage, designed but did not finished building the first programmable computer.

For much of the nineteenth century Britain remained utterly dominant as an industrial power in a way that no nation, not even the USA, has been since (the nearest approach was America’s position in the immediate post war years). To give an example: in the mid 19 century Britain produced two and a half times the iron produced in the rest of Europe. Even when Britain’s predominate position had gone she still dominated certain industries and trades massively. She built two thirds of the world’s shipping between 1890-1914 and possessed fifty per cent of the world’s carrying trade  between 1890-1914

Along side the development of manufacturing ran that of agriculture at which England became the leader during the  eighteenth century. The enclosure movement was already well advanced by 1700. By the middle of the nineteenth century  it was effectively finished. Not merely feudalism but the peasantry were gone. The old, inefficient open-field system was a dead letter. With enclosure came agricultural innovation. In the eighteenth century we have Jethro Tull,  whose seed drill greatly reduced the amount of seed needed for sowing, Robert Bakewell whose selective breeding  greatly increased the size of sheep and cattle and “Turmip” Townsend who greatly increased crop efficiency by various  means such as the marling of sandy soil. The importance of  such developments cannot be overestimated because the population of Britain rose so dramatically in the next century.

Why did the first Industrial Revolution occur in England and not elsewhere? The short answer is that no one knows. The explanations given by historians comprise a melange of social development, scientific discovery, legal development, political stability, geographical position, historical circumstances and commercial advance. But the problem is that any of the circumstances can be found in other countries. Obviously it was a confluence of developments which made England unusual. For myself, I give greatest weight to intangibles such as intellectual development, political maturity, legally enforced respect for private property and a sound system of money and credit for without those state underwritten assurances, it is difficult to see how human beings may begin to build the necessary structures for a sophisticated commercial and industrial system.

David Landes  sees the historical process of industrialisation as twofold. First,  comes a pre-industrial preparatory period in which irrationality of thought is gradually replaced by scientific method and what he calls “autonomy of intellectual inquiry” (p 219), that is,  thought divorced from unquestioned reliance on authority, irrationality, especially superstition. At the same time technology begins to be something more than by-guess-and-by-God. This gives birth to industrialisation by creating both the intellectual climate and the acquired  knowledge, both scientific and technological, necessary for the transformation from traditional to modern society. It is  as good a general explanation as any and fits the flow of England’s historical development.