526 Ch. 14 • The Industrial Revolution
form English agriculture earlier than anywhere else, feeding Britain’s grow
ing population. Britain was blessed with coal and iron ore deposits located
near water transportation, which made it possible for raw materials to be
transported to factories with relative ease. British commercial domination,
built in part on its rich colonial trade, provided capital for investment in
manufacturing. British entrepreneurs relied heavily on self-finance, and at
first banks played a relatively small role in long-term investment. However,
the government did encourage a precocious banking system that would
assume a greater role later in the century. It was far easier to begin a com
pany in Britain than on the continent; after 1840, any number of people
could form a company in Britain simply by registering with the government.
The structure of British society also proved conducive to economic
development. There were fewer social barriers between wealthy landown
ing nobles, prosperous gentry, and eager entrepreneurs. Dissenters (non
Anglican Protestants) were afforded basic toleration, and some became
manufacturers.
The British government adopted a general policy of non-interference in
business. But Parliament, which had protected British manufacturers by
enacting tariffs in the eighteenth century, now was able to reduce tariffs in
the 1820s, shrugging off foreign economic challenges. Parliament allocated
funds for England’s burgeoning transportation network, aiding merchants
and manufacturers. Parliamentary acts of enclosure (facilitating the con
solidation of arable strips of land and the division of common lands) helped
wealthy landowners add to their holdings, augmenting the productivity of
their land and permitting the accumulation of investment capital.
English cotton manufacturing, gradually transformed by mechanization,
led the Industrial Revolution and carried along other industries in its wake.
The popularity of cotton clothing spread rapidly, allowing poor people to be
more adequately clothed. Cotton fabric could be more easily cleaned and
was less expensive than wool, worsted, and other materials. Cotton clothing
joined silks and linens in the wardrobes of the wealthy.
The cotton manufacturer became the uncrowned king of industrial soci
ety in Britain, revered as the epitome of the successful entrepreneur, enrich
ing himself while embellishing Britain’s reputation. Between 1789 and
1850, the amount of raw cotton imported into Britain (much of it picked by
plantation slaves in the southern United States) increased by more than fifty
times, rising from about 11 million pounds per year to 588 million pounds.
During the same period, British production of cotton textiles increased from
40 million yards per year to 2,025 million yards. Cotton goods accounted
for about half of all British exports through the first half of the nineteenth
century.
In the British textile industry, spinning (the operation by which fibrous
materials such as cotton, wool, linen, and silk are turned into thread or yarn)
gradually had become mechanized during the last decades of the eighteenth
century (see Chapter 10). The advent of power looms and power weaving