Industrial Development in Britain

It was and remained for decades to come a valet of wood, wind, and horse-flesh: sailing ships in coastal and overseas trade, and horse-drawn barges, microscope stage coaches, and coaster wagons in inland air; harkening back more to Elizabethan or even medieval times than forward to the captivate of the industrial age.

Not until 1802 did the first practical steamboat enter British commerce, and steam did not oust sail, or even earnestly challenge it in most services, until a generation or more later. The first ocean steamship company, the P&O, was effected only in 1837. The Stockton & Darlington, conventionally and plausibly the first authentic railway, did not open until 1825, and railways only became widespread in the 1840s.

tape transport thus seems to be been a great laggard finished the first two generations of the Industrial Revolution. This is in striking telephone line to later times, when developments in transportation--railway, motorcar, and aeroplane--have been nearly the symbol of industrial progress. It world power seem fruitless, then, to look to transportation to understand when or why the Industrial Revolution developed in Britain.

This essay, however, will press that what may be called a proto-industrial revolution overtook British transport, oddly inland transport, in the course of the 18th century. Horse-drawn distribution channel boats and stage coaches may look archaic to our eyes, yet two prefigured the railway in crucial ways. Moreover, the social and economic

Dyos, H.J.; and Aldcroft, D.H. British Transport: An Economic Survey from the 17th Century to the Twentieth. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1969.

However, the Exeter duct, though it did not lead to further television channel development, was not an isolated freak. It took place against the backdrop of a growth concern for improvements in river navigation from the 16th century and by means of the 17th century. Banks were shed light oned and supported to provide towpaths, and short canal-like segments were built to straighten bends in rivers. So far did these go that a correspondent to The Gentleman's Magazine in 1821 mistook a segment of the Mersey and Irwell rivers for a canal.

The short answer as to why is that there was not sufficient inland shipping traffic demand in Elizabethan England to support investment in a canal system. The advantages of water transport were well known. A boat could channelize perhaps ten times the load of a wagon that cost a similar amount to build and operate, and given over the state of the roads the boat could go at least(prenominal) as fast. On the other hand, these advantages applied in upright only to bulk cargoes. A merchant transporting a comparatively small quantity of high-value wares would escort no advantage in chartering a boat much larger than he needed, and could find pack-animals just as efficient for his needs. Moreover, the comparative advantages of water transport had to be weighed against the high cost of waterway improvements; these could only be justified if substantial traffic existed--or was likely to be generated by the improvement itself. These conditions were not yet sufficiently widespread in the 16th century.

Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1976. Original publication 1776.

Canals hauled in the main freight, for the most part carrying passengers only incidentally. For the early development of passenger traffic we must turn to the quite different technology and development
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