The Age Of Industrialisation

A steam engine is a machine that does mechanical work by using heat as its the main ingredient. The new model of the steam engine was made by James Watt and Mathew Boulton. They both worked hard and opened a mill that was called the Boulton and Watt in Birmingham, England in the 18^th century.

A cotton mill is a machinery that is usually set up inside the building. It does the work of weaving and spinning and produces cotton yarn or basically cotton cloth. This machine was created in 1771. The cotton mill was created by Richard Arkwright.

The seasonal demand for labour means that the labour that is required by the industries is depended on the season that is present there. Mostly the labour is required during a particular season in a very large number, and as the season ,passes, the labour requirement becomes zero. In many industries , the work was seasonal, so the employers demand for labourers was seasonal. This can be explained as follows : Many industries had worked only during certain months and seasons of the year. The gas work industries were also busy during the winter months.

• The demand for certain labour was seasonal like , breweries , where beer was made was busy during winter seasons.

• Bookbinders and printers catered to the festive season of Christmas. Winter was also the month where ships were taken for cleaning.

All these industries needed extra labour during their time of the year and thus in the rest of the month's labour was without work.

In the eighteenth century, it was not only the Indian subcontinent that was producing cotton, but other countries were also giving their best.

The East India Company was going well until in the eighteenth century the European country companies became their competitors. These European companies took the concessions on various reasons and taxes and took the monopoly right of trade among various places of the globe where textiles were high in demand. The Portuguese, French and Dutch came in the market as the major competitors for woven cloth. This affected the East India company textile production on a large scale.

Before the age of machine industries, silk and cotton were the goods that had dominated all the markets of the international arena. The cotton and textiles produced in other countries were coarse, and the one produced in India was very fine in quality, and thus the countries in the fertile crescent and the south Asian countries like Persia , Saudi Arabia and Germany traded goods from India across the seaports.

The East India company of textiles appointed paid labour servants who were responsible for supervising weavers , collecting the supplies and examining the quality of cloth they were called “GOMASTHAS”.

A gomastha of the eighteenth century , painting on wood.

The Swadeshi movement gave the message to boycott the foreign made cotton and other clothes as this made India dependent and thus people would never be developed neither will there be any development of the country in terms of industrial production. This movement asked the government to increase the tariff of foreign goods for the protection of the domestic economy.

The companies protested for their collective interest and asked the government to give the producers other concessions.

God Krishna , Saraswati, Lakshmi, Kartikeya and even maharaja Ranjit Singh was found in many imported goods. These god and goddesses goods were used by international and foreign manufacturers.

The first cotton mill was set up in Bengal which was located in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent in 1854. A cotton mill is machinery that is usually set up inside the building , it does the work of weaving and spinning , after doing these two functions the machine produces cotton yarn or basically cotton cloth.

Dinshaw Petit, a Parsi, was the founder of the first textile mills in India.

Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata who had built a huge industrial empire in India.

Seth Hukumchand was a Marwari businessman was famous for launching first jute mill in Calcutta

G.D Birla who is a famous industrialist his , father and grandfather were also one of the famous and prominent industrialists of Indian nationality.

It was invented by James Hargreaves; the spinning jenny was a machine that speeded up the process of spinning. Thus, reducing the demand for labour. What was done by 10 workers could be done by one on a single spinning jenny and many spindles could be spun on it with loads of bundles of cotton.

Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill in England in Cromford , Derbyshire in 1771. It marked the move away from home production to mass manufacturing in factories.

A joint stock company is basically a company in which there are different shares which are held by shareholders; It is a business entity which can be sold in shares by shareholders.I

Dwarkanath Tagore established the six joint-stock companies in India during the 1830s and 40s.

A cotton mill is a machinery that is usually set up inside the building; it does the work of weaving and spinning , after doing these two functions the machine produces cotton yarn or basically cotton cloth.

The first cotton mill was set up in Bengal in 1854, and the first cotton mill of England was created by Richard Arkwright in 1771.

The British and Indian manufacturers both started focussing on the international and overseas.

They emphasized more on expanding their business outside the respective countries and places.

Both the manufactures made exports their priority. This led to the expansion of their business.

The large-scale industries were located in Bengal and Bombay during the 20^th century in 1911. One of the reasons for this was their location along the sea. Since these two were port cities, it helped the Britishers in trading in foreign markets.

Gomasthas were appointed for the supervising of weavers, collecting supplies and examining the quality of cloth. The East India company of textiles appointed paid labour servants who were responsible for supervising weavers, collecting the supplies and examining the quality of cloth they were called “GOMASTHAS”.

A gomastha of eighteenth-century a wooden painting.

Trade guild was an association or organisation of all the merchants , craftsmen and labourers who used to oversee their practice of trade and craft work of either a particular place or of the area where they lived.

World War 1 had a dramatic effect on India. This can be analysed by:

• The British mills started focussing on the needs of the war, so imports to India declined.

• Indian mills now had a vast home market to supply its goods.

• The war needs were also given to the Indian mills to cater to.

• New mills were set-up, and the earlier ones were running for a large number of hours.

• New workers were employed, and more and more people were employed as the demand for cotton increased dramatically.

In the early 19^th century Britishers started exporting their machine-made clothes to the Indian subcontinent.

The export market of India collapsed on a large scale.

There was a shortage of raw cotton as all was exported to the United Kingdom.

And due to the American Civil War, the supplies to Britain were cut down, and thus the amount of import to England increased on a large scale.

In the Victorian United Kingdom, there was no shortage of labour because a huge amount of labourers moved from villages leaving their hometown and travelling to cities for work.

Labour was present on a large scale, so the wages were very low and cheap.

As the industrial era came , huge amounts of land were taken and converted into industries. The labours didn’t have any option but to work for the merchants in town.

They had no work to do as it was an era of modernization. Earlier they could work on their plots and give a living to the whole family. But now the peasants and artisans had to look for alternative sources for earning rather than the common land for survival.

The significance of using historical figures and goddess on the product for advertisement:

As the gods are considered divine, putting their images made the product, a good of divinity.

Also when the British manufacturers used these images, it gave the Indians an approval of familiarity, so the Indians were lured easily towards the product. Putting historical figures appealed to Indian consumers and buyers.

Reasons why industrialist preferred hand labour rather than machines and heavy equipment:

• The labour was available in large quantities thus it was cheap.

• The labour or the handwork was cheaper than the costly machines.

• The costly machines had huge investments which were not affordable by the industrialists, and they were more comfortable with hand labour.

• Machines had huge maintaining costs, and if they ever broke, it was tough or nearly impossible to repair them.

• Seasonal labour was used at certain times of the year as the machines could not be bought only for a seasonal purpose.

The British cloth was very cheap. The Indian cloth was expensive as it was a hand-made and little bit uncomfortable at that time.

Their was an increase in the number of mills in Britain as a result of which huge quantities of cloth was produced at a very large scale.

In comparison to India Britain was producing on a very large scale. When the American civil war broke, there was pressure on India for all the imports in England.

As a result, a huge amount of loan was taken, and the debt increased at cotton was bought at an exorbitant price , after the war, the imports again came from America thus Indian producers had so much debt that couldn’t be repaid thus it declined on a very large scale.

The process of industrialization was not very rapid; it almost took a whole century for all these changes to occur.

The most important industries of Britain were metal and cotton; they helped the country in expanding their production.

Small inventions and other inventions like the spinning jenny, the steam engine and the handloom helped in the production of cotton.

There was no growth in the industries, but there was industrialization. The quality suffered a lot of all the products.

The various phases were:

• The first phase was the division of labour in which the production was divided so that the company sustains itself.

• The second phase was increasing the scale of production so that a large number of goods are produced. Also known as proto-industrialisation.

• The third phase of industrialization led to increased productivity and efficiency which is a result of the first two-phase.

The Indian bankers were involved in providing with the financial needs.

These bankers helped in banking money, transferring necessary funds and financing all the traders.

The traders in India helped in shipping consignments and helping the consumers and buyers with the supplies that were needed.

The merchants traded from Bombay, Calcutta and Madras to the fertile crescent , the middle east and the neighbouring countries of the Indian subcontinent. After this, the businessmen had large amounts of which helped in expanding the business.

• Weavers gave their whole time to weaving thus accepted the fixed price of the market.

• The appointment of gomasthas led to the decline as they were the ones who took the place of the brokers and the middlemen which led to direct contact which was even worse as it led to high corruption and exorbitant tax. The brokers went bankrupt.

• The system of loans and advances led to the Indians weavers taking more loans which led to the accumulation of tax and debt at a huge rate. These debts could never be repaid and ultimately led to all the producers getting caught in a debt cycle.

• There were reports of fights and problems between the weavers and the gomasthas, and the weavers left their villages, thus deserting them.