Industrial Revolution

The importance of cokee
•In 1709 Abraham Darby developed a technique for using coke, a product of coal, instead of
charcoal, for melting the iron ore.
•There was a vast supply of coal available locally, an the coal was of a type which enabled
impurities to be eliminated from the iron ore.
•Now a better quality iron could be produced at a lower price.
•This higher quality iron was to prove essential in developing the machinery needed for
industrialisation.
Darby’s iron works
•Darby placed his iron works near the River Severn, which provided water power and was near to
both coalfields and iron ore sites, and was also an outlet to the sea through the port of Bristol.
•This technological achievement allowed a major expansion of the iron trade, and ultimately it
helped lead to the Industrial Revolution.
•In the space of 40 years, the small village of Coalbrookdale, in Shropshire, where Darby made his
discovery, became a major mining site, employing about 500 people.
•Thirty years later Darby’s son took over the business
•He made a big breakthrough by improving the quality of the cast iron.
•For the first time, coke-produced iron was as good as iron smelted by charcoal.
•It was also much cheaper and could be produced in much larger quantities.
•He used steam pumps to pump water to the water wheels which fired his furnaces. His Furnaces
could run all year - even when the river was low. Darby was the first iron maker to use steam
pumps. pumps.sn

•Thirty years later Darby’s son took over the business
•He made a big breakthrough by improving the quality of the cast iron.
•For the first time, coke-produced iron was as good as iron smelted by charcoal.
•It was also much cheaper and could be produced in much larger quantities.
•He used steam pumps to pump water to the water wheels which fired his furnaces. His Furnaces
could run all year - even when the river was low. Darby was the first iron maker to use steam
pumps. pumps.sn

•In 1712 Newcomen invented the world's first atmospheric steam engine.
•It became an important method of draining water from deep mines and was therefore a vital
component in the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
•Newcomen's invention enabled mines to be drained to greater depths than had previously been
possible.
•While it had an efficiency of only one per cent, it was cheaper than using horses to power a
pump.
•The first working engine was installed at a coal mine at Dudley Castle in Staffordshire in 1712.
•The engines were rugged and reliable and worked day and night - a factor which made them
hugely successful.
•By the time Thomas Newcomen died in 1729, there were at least 100 of his engines working in
Britain and across Europe.

•For centuries handloom weaving had been carried out on the basis of the shuttle bearing the
yarn being passed slowly and awkwardly from one hand to the other.
•In 1733 John Kay patented his flying shuttle that dramatically increased the speed of this
process.
•A weaver using Kay's flying shuttle could produce much wider cloth at faster speeds than before.
•By the 1760s, weavers all over Britain were using the Flying Shuttle

James Hargreaves’ ‘Spinning Jenny’ (1765)
•In 1764 Hargreaves built what became known as the Spinning-Jenny.
•The machine used eight spindles onto which the thread was spun.
•By turning a single wheel, the operator could now spin eight threads at once.
•Later, improvements were made that enabled the number to be increased to eighty.

Richard Arkwright added to this by developing the water frame in 1769. The water frame allowed
over one hundred spindles of thread to be spun at one time but was so large and needed so much
energy that he built it next to rivers and creeks in order to use the force of the water to spin the
machine.