The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The industrial revolution
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the Coventry Canal. Such portability makes it very
difficult to interpret the archaeological evidence for
steam engines on the basis of site remains alone.
The vast majority of engines do not survive in situ,
and those engine bases that do survive may have
been modified either as their engines were adapted,
or replaced, and as engines became smaller and less
dependent upon built features such as engine
houses.
By contrast, engine houses do tend to survive.
The Cornish pumping engine was a higher pressure,
single acting engine developed specifically for mining.
An archaeological survey of such engine houses in
Cornwall has produced a methodology for classifying
them as a single building type within the wider context
of crushers, waste heaps and mines that survive in
the Cornish landscape (Johnson et al. 1995) (Figure
16.5). Cornish mining technology was very
distinctive, and was exported to other parts of the
world in the nineteenth century, including South
Australia, where Cornish-style engine houses may still
be seen today.
In contrast to steam, remains of the gas and
electricity industries survive somewhat better,
although they are increasingly under threat, and
should also be seen as relevant to the study of the
industrial revolution. The way in which the Ironbridge
power stations, opened respectively in 1932
and 1969, were designed, built, and altered through
Figure 16.5 Engine house, Cornwall.
Source: Kate Clark
time, and the associated impact on the local landscape, which already had a long history of
industrialization, are explored by Stratton (1994).
The application of power to industrial processes provides a context for the development of
the factory system whereby production became highly organized, and labour specialized.
Textiles
The most potent symbol of the factory system is the multistorey textile mill, with its steam
engine or waterwheel powering several floors of spinning machinery. The spinning and weaving
of woollen cloth and the production of lace and hosiery were common amongst the textile
industries in Britain in the early part of the eighteenth century. However, major innovations in
textile machinery for spinning yarn, culminating in spinning mules of over 1,000 spindles,
revolutionized the scale of yarn production. Weaving remained hand operated, often in association
with spinning mills, until the development of an effective power loom in the early nineteenth
century. It was the displacement of once highly skilled hand loom workers that generated the
Luddite machine smashing, exacerbated by the depression following the Napoleonic wars. Many
of these developments applied to cotton, but were extended to woollen production, hosiery and
lace.
The textile mill buildings provide a graphic illustration of the changing nature of textile
production, and stand as one of the most visible reminders of the industrial revolution. Early