George and Robert Stephenson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Henry Bessemer
William Armstrong
Samuel Montagu
William Jacks
Both halves of Peto and Betts
Edward Harland [of Harland and Woolf]
Most of them were before 1870.
Cadburys, Barclays, Rowntrees, Lever Brothers, etc
Britain did not have many progressive, modernist industrialists operating in heavy and new industries (Alfred Herbert, John Brunner and Ludwig Mond were the few exceptions).
Besides, American industrialists tended to be way more risk-taking, ruthless and innovative, and more
visionary.
You know, Rockefeller was able to undercut the whole railway industry by simply adopting oil pipes to transfer oil, and this also revolutionized oil industry. Even his act of using "Standard Oil" brand had its purpose. Later, when facing competition from electrical companies in lighting market, he came up with the idea of selling gasoline, which at that time were just some kind of industrial waste of the oil industry.
Similarly, you can look at the way Andrew Carnegie gambled everything he had to build the Eads Bridge to cross the Mississippi as a steel one. And after that, he was really creative when he used an elephant to encourage people to cross the bridge. He was also credited for pioneering vertical integration in steel industry.
I also failed to mention Cyrus McCormick.
I'm not sure this is true at all. What about George Hudson (railroad baron), Robert Clive (and other nabobs who get rich in India), Cecil Rhodes (British South African Company,), Rothschild (banking).
The problem is that none of them were industrialists.
I'm not sure if this was really possible in Britain given the stratified class conscious nature of British society.
In America especially in this era-business acumen, as well as an ability to manage work forces, resources and yes play footsies with politicians(the corruption of this era is legendary) allowed those from poor or non descript backgrounds to "pull up their bootstraps".
In Britain this was never the case at least not in this era-the aristocracy and landed gentry were still very much a thing, and the whole system was designed to maintain that class order. Not allow working class Britain's to ascend to the heights of wealth and power.
Also the new money-industrialists, newspaper owners and so on largely integrated with the aristocracy-marrying into it, sending their sons to the same schools, etc... Thus joining with the aristocracy though remaining economically and culturally distinct from it.
In the US there wasn't really an aristocracy-sure there was old money and wealthy families in the south, or east coast, or New England, but there was plenty of openings-new industries, new businesses, new oppurtunities.
These openings and the fact American society was such that poor but hardworking immigrants or laborers might have a chance to make it meant that gilded age robber barons could emerge in the US when their parents had been poor immigrants skinning rabbits for a living or working on the docks.
This for a variety of social, economic, and political reasons wasn't possible in the UK.
Strongly agree. American society generally allowed people to, well, dream more. Although Ford rose in the next century, he was the most prominent example.
All prominent US
billionaires at that time, except for Morgan, rose from poor background.