With the opening of Columbus' new air route, Europe has gradually become a monopolist of international trade. Through trade and colonization, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands rose one after another. Although Britain appeared last, it was the most important-Britain completed the revolution from commercial times to the industrial age. Spain declined, Holland declined, and Britain rose.
Real wealth can never be separated from hard work. Since the Middle Ages, many farmers in Britain have changed their farms into pastures, which is called the "enclosure movement" of "sheep eating people". /kloc-in 0/700, the value of wool textiles exported from Britain reached $3 million. Since then, due to the limitation of wool resources, the wool textile industry began to decline from prosperity. In this context, wool substitutes appeared. In a very short period of time, the cotton textile industry suddenly emerged as a deep-water bomb of the industrial revolution.
Historically, it was cotton, not wool, that gave birth to the industrial revolution. If the wool textile industry originated from the "enclosure movement" is only a prelude to the industrial revolution, then the emergence of cotton processing industry is the triumph of the industrial revolution.
From flying shuttle to Jenny spinning machine
/kloc-Before the 8th century, Britain did not produce cotton, and the cotton textile industry was not optimistic. Compared with luxury wool textiles, cheap cotton textiles are more popular, but almost all of them come from India and China.
Since17th century, cotton from America has been continuously transported to Liverpool. At the same time, Manchester also began to grow cotton, so the cotton textile industry in Lancashire gradually rose.
Compared with Indian handmade cotton fabrics, the cotton textile industry in Britain was at a disadvantage from the beginning, because the labor cost was much higher than that in India. India's cheap cotton textiles forced British cotton textile manufacturers to create better machines and reduce production costs. If Britain still produces in the manual workshop mode, then they can't compete with Indian and China cotton textiles at all. In other words, in order to win in the international trade competition, the British cotton textile industry has only one way to go, and that is to adopt large-scale automatic production.
Compared with some European countries such as Italy and Holland, the development of British textile industry is somewhat backward. /kloc-At the beginning of the 8th century, some British businessmen used Dutch technology and Italian technology to build textile mills. 1733, john kay, a 30-year-old textile worker in Manchester, invented the flying shuttle. Kay fundamentally improved the old loom, changing the manual shuttle between warp yarns into mechanical shuttle. Because the shuttle is much faster than before, it is named "flying shuttle".
Shuttle simplifies the work of weavers, speeds up weaving, and takes an important step to realize weaving mechanization. A weaver needs 10 weavers to supply cotton yarn, or even more, which breaks the textile balance. The price of cotton yarn is soaring, which is in short supply and often out of stock. The "yarn shortage" mobilized almost everyone in Britain, and spinning schools were set up all over the country. Even orphanages and prisons are spinning around the clock, and even official and private institutions provide incentives to encourage the invention of spinning machine technology.
1738, after Whitter developed the roller spinning machine, manual spinning was quickly replaced by the machine, although this machine can only spin one spindle at a time. 1765, the weaver Hargreaves designed and manufactured a spinning machine that can spin 88 spindles at the same time, and named it "Jenny Spinning Machine" after his wife. 10 years later, Britain has no less than 20,000 Jenny spinning machines; The smallest machine can do the work of 6 ~ 8 workers. In Lancashire, this kind of machine is popularized at an alarming rate. Within a few years, it replaced the traditional spinning wheel. From 1750 to 1769, the export of British cotton products increased by more than 10 times. Driven by Jenny's spinning machine, Britain accelerated to capitalism and workers became "proletarians".
At that time, Jenny's spinning machine was still driven by manpower. With the increasing number of spindles, it is urgent to seek new power (3 10328, fund it). 1769, the watchmaker and hairdresser Aklet built a huge hydraulic spinning machine. Hydraulic spinning machine is more advanced than Jenny spinning machine, and the spun yarn is thicker and stronger, and the rotation speed is faster. Therefore, on both sides of some rivers in Britain, a number of spinning mills using water power were quickly built. 1779, Akelet has more than 300 workers and thousands of spindles, making it the first modern spinning factory.
From Akelet, handicraft industry supported by human muscle strength was gradually replaced by machine factory driven by external force.
1779, worker crompton combined the advantages of Jenny's spinning machine and hydraulic spinning machine and invented the "mule machine", that is, a mule-like spinning machine. The spun yarn is thin and strong. Mule machine is driven by water. At first, the spindle feeder had 40 spindles, then it developed to 900 spindles and finally increased to 2000 spindles.
Jenny spinning machine is suitable for spinning weft yarn, Akelet hydraulic spinning machine is suitable for spinning warp yarn, and the spinning machine is suitable for spinning high count (extra fine) yarn. These three machines have made great contributions to the transformation of British cotton spinning industry from manual production to mechanization. Due to the extensive use of spinning machines, the number of yarns has greatly increased, and there is surplus besides meeting the needs of weavers, so the textile balance has been broken again. The loom revolution promoted the loom revolution, and today's loom revolution in turn promoted the loom revolution. 1785, rural priest Cartwright invented the hydraulic loom, which improved the working efficiency by 40 times. The priest also took off his black robe and started a weaving factory.
In the second half of the whole18th century, the emerging cotton textile industry, which was not bound by feudal guilds and traditional laws and regulations, became the locomotive of the industrial revolution, which promoted the rise and development of wool spinning, bleaching and dyeing, papermaking, printing and other industries. The production mode of cotton spinning machine and loom driving large machines has created a beautiful beginning for the industrial revolution.
From machine patents to power plants
From john kay's "Flying Shuttle", Hargreaves' multi-spindle spinning machine made of improved old spinning wheel, crompton's spinning machine, to james watt's successful invention of linked steam engine and the establishment of the first steam spinning factory, British spinning technology has been continuously innovated. 1803, Horox made the first iron loom, and the cotton spinning industry finally completed the long process of breaking cocoon into butterfly.
Akelet's hydropower plant, which needs neither strength nor technology, uses all female workers and child workers, which not only reduces the production cost, but also realizes real batch production. Akelet's machine yarn is more uniform and stronger than manual yarn, which completely replaces hemp. Finally, Britain realized the localization of cotton cloth and quickly replaced Indian printed cloth in the domestic market.
A child of 15 years old took care of two steam looms and knitted three and a half pieces of cloth. At the same time, a skilled worker can only weave 1 horse in one shuttle. 1790, the spinning speed of "mule machine" driven by steam engine was more than 100 times that of manual spinning in China and India. 175 1 year, the export of British cotton products was only 46,000 pounds, and 1800 reached 5.4 million pounds. From 65438 to 0820, cotton textiles, as Britain's largest industrial product, accounted for half of its exports. By 186 1, the export scale of cotton fabric is more than four times that of wool fabric, reaching 46.8 million pounds. That is to say, in 100 years, the cotton processing capacity of Britain was increased by 1000 times due to industrialization. In addition, from 1760 to 18 15, the number of clothes exported by Britain has also increased by 100 times.
In 1760, hand-spun 1 pound cotton yarn needs 18.438+02p. In 1836, only 1 .52p is needed to spin1lb cotton yarn by machine. Machine production reduced the labor cost by nearly 92%. 1835 A cotton spinner needed at least two or three hundred people to finish this job 60 years ago. /kloc-in 0/800, the British cotton mill processed cotton worth 56 million pounds. After 10 years, the annual processing capacity will reach1230,000 pounds. By the middle of 19 century, there were 1800 cotton mills in Britain, employing 328,000 workers and using steam engines, with an annual output of cotton1600,000 meters. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the annual output has increased eightfold. 1820, there were 250,000 manual weavers in Britain. By 1856, there are only 23,000 people left in this group.
Britain started from the cotton textile industry and took the first step of human mechanized production. There is no doubt that cotton became the basis of the industrial revolution. 1833, about1500,000 people in Britain worked directly or indirectly in cotton mills. According to the analysis of historian paul kennedy, during the 1950s of 18 to the 1930s of 19, the mechanization of British textile industry increased personal productivity by 300 to 400 times. The development of textile industry has also promoted the improvement of weaving technology. The cotton cleaning machine, carding machine, bleaching machine and dyeing machine matched with cotton spinning machinery have also come out one after another, forming a complex machine series. The cotton textile industry became the first industry in Britain to realize mechanization, and the textile output showed a blowout growth: less than 360,000 pounds in 1780, more than 2 million pounds in 1792, and more than 7.8 million pounds in 1802; It has increased by more than 20 times in 20 years.
1776, Akelet's spinning factory has expanded from Nottingham to Lancashire, and his factory has become a model factory of the world cotton spinning industry. By 1782, Achray had employed 5,000 employees, and the capital he recruited reached 200,000 pounds. The unique significance of Akelet is that he not only realized the integration of invention and industry for the first time, but also created the myth that "you can get rich without inheriting land", which was unimaginable in the traditional pre-industrial society.
/kloc-In the late 8th century, there were many companies specializing in the production of textile machinery in Britain, and Akelet also sold the production licenses of hydraulic spinning machines at high prices. Other factories that want to obtain patent authorization mainly pay as much as 7,000 pounds, in addition to paying 1000 pounds every year.
As two important figures in the industrial revolution, Akrit and Watt became good friends in patent litigation, and their close cooperation made the steam engine and the factory get married for the first time. In the past, waterwheel-driven factories were built by the river. The steam engine completely liberated the power source (600405, shares it), and the factory moved to a city with more convenient life, transportation and logistics. Due to the gathering of factories, an unprecedented urbanization has developed rapidly. 1783, when Akelet's patent was cancelled, there was only one cotton mill in Lancashire. Thirty years later, the number of factories has rapidly developed to 86. The population has also surged from the original 24,000 to 6.5438+0.5 million, making Manchester the first modern industrial city in the world. In Liverpool, 36 kilometers from Manchester, cotton from the United States is continuously transported here, where it is loaded into carriages and canal boats. Later, in order to transport cotton faster, the world's first railway was born.
In the history of modern industry, Akelet undoubtedly has an extremely important position. Although UNESCO defines "book" as "non-periodical printed publication with a cover of at least 49 pages", it does not affect that Ackerett's patent application with only 3 pages is included in "12 books that change the world".
Akelet's patent has made a breakthrough in the cotton textile industry, which is the key to the industrial revolution. It has established a factory system that can play a leading role in global industry. This system has remained basically unchanged since Akelet's life. In addition, it played a great influence in the industrial revolution, which not only accelerated the revolution, but also integrated great social changes. At the same time, it also provided energy for mass movements from rural areas to towns and villages, and enabled the capitalist economy to rise rapidly.