All you need for industrialisation is actually a stimulus to do so. It's as simple as that.
For England the stimulus was money or to be precise-corporate greed. This nation was very different from all other European nations of the period (the period after the 100 years war till World War One) because the government was actively seeking ways to generate more profit with less resources. After the lost of Normandy and all the fertile land outside the British islands the crown had only 2 options-stagnate and be satisfied with whatever it already has-like other places in Europe did or find new ways to generate profit other than war on its neighbours. They chose the second and it lead them to the industrial revolution and first place in the power structure of the world. If you start to think about it in detail it was the lost of the 100 years war that propelled England to industrialize, albeit not directly. The medieval person wasn't used to the idea of searching ways to make production more efficient or any other interests in mechanisation in particular. For him money was equal to land (or in less direct ways-people), so the main focus for gaining wealth was through territorial expansion. This is why the military had such a prominent role in society and why people viewed land in such high regard. It was assumed the one with the land was the one with the money. Traders and other businessmen were seen as inferior to the knights and the noblemen ad only a few city states in Italy were able to generate large profits without controlling a lot of land. But in their cases wealth was equated more with their naval, therefore military, power, not industry. This is why industrialization was impossible without the reformation.
But when the English were thrown out of Europe they didn't had the option of acquiring more fertile land any more. The crown new that if they wanted to achieve high status against the other nation (at that time more powerful than England) they had to search for other options. First, they saw what Spain and Portugal did in the New World and decided to acquire a lot of land there-viable option to European conquest. But if you think about it, it was still the medieval mindset in action behind these ambitions. The goal was to get land because land=wealth, I mean arable land. It was only after they realized they could make a profit out of goods in short supply, e.g. wool, sugar, tobacco, cotton, etc., with the rise of capitalism, that they started to turn their attention away from the land=wealth strategy. Only after the market was there did the crown knew to put efforts into the manufacturing, instead of conquest. It was this mindset that brought the Industrial revolution and turned England invincible, not the focus on any particular technology or resource. So, what you need to search for early industrialization isn't (at least not only, not as key factor) any particular technology or resource, but a change in the mindset of particular people-a change which can drive them to maximise the production of particular resource intensively, not extensively. Extensive manufacturing can be easy to achieve if you focus only on a particular aspect of production. Actually, this is what most people throughout history have done-they thought land makes you rich because if you control land you control the access of people to resources. That is why the acquirement of land was the central pillar in ancient societies. The competitor of land were people themselves, hence slavery made you a rich man. Other options were gold, cattle, silk and whatever but the attention was always on a particular resource, on a particular facet of economy that was equalized with wealth in general.
The particular case of the British is the fact they lost the 100 year war and so they lost the ability to acquire new lands in this old-fashioned way. They had to either adapt or fade into obscurity. Actually, if you read the pages of European history you would find many example of nations that lost their place in history after sound military defeats. Where is Burgundy now? How about hungary? Where are the Teutons? The league of the Northern city-states? And so on. If the English had stuck with the old ways of thinking land=wealth there would be no industrial revolution now. Actually, probably we would still be living in a kind of "dark ages" where the dominant religion would have been the protestant form of Christianity. There would be no computers, no Internet, no electricity, not even steam power. Probably there would be gunpowder and we would know where the New World is but none of the technological nations of the west would be here. For an industrial revolution to happen the most important thing is a change in the thought process of a society, not its knowledge, technology, access to resources and so on. The English changed their thinking about wealth and money when they were no longer able to conquer Europe and when they saw how much money the Dutch made from trade of rare goods. It made them think first and foremost in the terms of production and profit, not in terms of land and control as did everybody before them. It was this "paradigm-shift" that opened the wy for industry and made them the masters of the world. They were the first to do it, but without them it would probably have never happened in our timeline. If you think about it before the English capitalism was born (and they weren't calling it capitalism back then) the dominant mindset was that gold equalled wealth, so all Europe was in the race to acquire more gold. It was an extension of the old ways of thinking ownership of resources equalled their value. No matter what it is-land, slaves, gold, cattle, silk or whatever until you think the fact you own something gives it intrinsic value, you would be stuck with the same old production methods and feel the need to appropriate, not invent. Only the English saw through this delusion and understood the value of resource is determined not by its passion, but by its use. This is why they rejected mercantilism and invented capitalism in the form we know it today. The big discovery of Adam Smith wasn't the virtue of hard labour and free market but the fact he realized (as well as many other people of the age) gold was as worth as the produce it can buy, therefore one must strive to improve the production of goods, instead of the acquirement of resources. It is what drove the industrial revolution and it's what made England great. Not the ships of the navy, not the science, not the free market itself, not even the steam engine. All these are post factum consequences of the realization one must improve its production methods, not the conquest of resources. The reformation helped to form this view but it wasn't critical. What was critical was the "paradigm shift" that occurred under capitalism.
I know many of you will disagree with my stand but if you give it a second thought you would understand industrial revolution could have happened many times throughout history, but it didn't because the people weren't ready to make this assumption, because they weren't ready to start thinking differently about economy and its place in society. For example, the ancient Greece could have started industrialising many times during antiquity, hell, if it comes to this Athens could have become the first industrial powerhouse in history. They just had to put the talents of their mathematicians in use to produce the first steam engines in history. They surely could have used them on their ships. They had the knowledge to utilise steam power and the need of ships able to sail under all conditions. Why didn't they tried to power a boat by steam? China could have industrialized for more than 1000 years of its history-surely lack of knowledge or weak economy wasn't the problem. China had shitloads of resources and able craftsmen. But they didn't had the mindset to ask the emperor to allow them to use machines for production, instead of people. They couldn't think of human labour as limiting factor in production and sure as hell didn't felt there was any need to disturb the natural Order of things by increasing efficiency. In their mindset production was a function of skill and those who were more skilled needed to get more money, not the ones who knew how to manipulate people more effectively with machines and the use of manufacturing. Chinese man couldn't imagine industrialization since such a heavy use of machines making the human efforts indiscriminate with respect to others would have been an unbearable blow to Natural Order of things. The emperor could have never allowed it! The same goes for the papacy, or at least I think so. In my own research, for example, I try to make the point that people had the knowledge required to industrialise and create science as we know it for thousands of years, even as early as the iron age, but they didn't because they couldn't imagine a different kind of society, because they couldn't bare the thought of a major change in the way they look at the world. If you think about it, we aren't that far away from them, either. Who of you could think of fundamentally different ways to organise society than what we already know? Can you think of society organised in forms different than democracy or monarchy? Can you imagine economic system different than capitalism or socialism? Can you imagine an army different than the centralized command structure we know today? I have the observation that human being are surprisingly inefficient at imagination when it comes to alternative forms of organization of society. On particular such form, a particular tradition tends to "stick" for very long periods of time, for generations and very few people questioned it once they have grown with it. And even those who question it, do it without realizing better alternatives exist and just go on living realizing full well the wrongness of their ways. For example, people knew slavery was bad both at Athens, Rome and the US south but few did anything against it because they couldn't imagine other ways to achieve cheap labour. I could argue that even with all of their knowledge in philosophy and mathematics the Greeks and the Romans chose to "forget" labour can be done more efficiently by machines instead of thinking what to do with the slaves. No one wanted to face the social backlash in these kinds of societies. The same is true for monarchy and democracy. Why it need to go to revolution in France? Why many primitive people never adopted agriculture even when faced with societies that already had it? The list can go on and on-the important point is in order for industrialization to happen people need to have a kind of "paradigm shift" first which can make them think in new ways whereby they can change society to a level making the industrialization possible. Industrialization is one of these very few instances where society can't do it without shifting concepts of values, relations amongst people and even culture an language. In order to industrialize you need to change completely. If a society isn't willing to do these changes, than it goes to anarchy and can even disintegrate. This is why industrialization takes such a great toll on primitive societies not used to western values. This is why Europe was able to colonize the world. This is why China and India lagged so much (and are still lagging). This is why Africa fell to pieces and the arabs prefer brutal theocracies to modern liberal industrial nations-people there simply can't think in terms of the same value systems the west does. industrialization is impossible without "paradigm shifts" throughout society and the ability to handle this shift is far more important for a society than its technology or the available resources.
Thus, England didn't industrialise because of the availability of coal or iron ore, but because it was ready to make the transition from medieval mindset to one of flourishing capitalism and the value of individuality. All the rest of the world wasn't! It's what gave England the cutting edge to the rest of the world and it's what is still keeping it afloat (despite now facing great perils). If you know history well you would understand it! If it weren't for the lost in the 100 years war and the reformation I doubt the English would have taken this "paradigm shift". it was really too much to ask for any nation. For anyone in the world. I think the world of English victory in the 100 year war or of England still under Catholicism would have been far worse than what we have now. I think without these major events to prime people to start thinking differently the world as we know it would have never happened. I think in such events there would have been no drive to increase the efficiency of production and still trade, e.g. gold and land would have been the most important resources, not manufactured goods like wool, cotton, iron, glass, you name it. Than there would have been no drive to increase the efficiency of production and the military aristocracy would still have been considered the most important part of society. In such a world the New World would have been looted to a far extent but probably the natives would have found ways to counter the Europeans by now and they themselves would have created their own kingdoms and empires in the New World. China and India would have been well as they were in the age of Modernity and the West would have hardly had the resources needed to subjugate them. Guns and cannons would probably have been the most advanced technology, along with few other manufacturing processes with limited level of mechanization like cotton, wool and other cloths manufacturing and we would still be glorifying or emperors and their bloodlines. To be short-without the "paradigm shift" of a nation acquiring technology to increase efficiency, to increase the intensity of production, instead the resources available there would have never been industrialization! If you want to see where early industrialization is possible, see what are the circumstances requiring such "paradigm shift". Under what conditions society would be ready to dispense with its old social institutions and norms to acquire new ones fostering he technological infrastructure for efficient production?
I can give you 2 examples of recent (relatively) history-the industrialization of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s was something the world has never seen before. It was actually the greatest industrialization in history in terms of efficiency and growth of output. The Russians did it not because of capitalism and the profit motive but because of communism and the need they felt to defend their country. They managed to do it because they were able to both mobilize all the resources of their country (something which the tsar could have done before, too) and because they manage to give their people a new set of values through communism. I can argue if there was no communism and Russian revolution, Russia could have never industrialized. Not to the extent it had. They couldn't appreciate the values of mechanisation and electrification without the social constructs of socialism and without them changing their society the old ways would have made them utterly inadequate for modern society. Russia would have lost the race with the Western empires and Japan and would have been torn apart by them. The other example is the recent history of China where again communism had to first destroy the entire fabric of society before making the country being able to industrialise. Without the cultural revolution and the huge impact on society it had the Chinese people weren't ready to appreciate the cultural norms and institution which came with their new society. Only after the party had cleared the ways of the old was the country able to adopt new outlook to the world and industrialise. The same process of killing the old has happened in Japan, too, but that is the only case in our history where the process was generated internally, rather than externally and it was due to the ability of the society to adapt which far exceeded anything else the West had seen before. In the same manner if you take notice of the way the third world had spiralled into chaos post-colonization you would see the same paradigm-first it comes a period of refreshing the old ways, of soul-searching and of acquiring new identity, than it comes the realization that this new identity is too different from the traditional identity of the nations to be practical identity for the people and finally when the people try clinging on to their old ways and what they feel as their true identity the nation spirals into chaos followed by years of anarchy and civil wars. It's a result of collapsing society never capable of appreciating the fruits of industrialization. It can't change completely out of what is traditional for it and the result is often too harsh on the people. This is what happens if you try industrializing without a paradigm shift-a stark reminder of the fact that social processes are always interlinked with the technology a society utilizes and vice versa/ So, if you want to know is early industrialization possible I can humbly advice you to look for the answers of a different set of questions. The questions whether society is ready to industrialise or not. Is it ready to throw away its old norms of conduct amongst people? Is it ready to acquire new ones? How strong is the connection to its traditions? Are there any major power structures (like the church for example) ready to squash the new influences with their influence? Can people "handle" the new circumstances of social organisation or would there be any major factor contributing to the demise of their society as a reaction to the change caused by the industrialization? If you manage to answer these questions you would have your answer.
In the end, I would like to show you how I solve the question in my own worldbuilding. I imagine a country facing opposition on all fronts. I imagine a country trying to oppose both the Orthodox and the Catholic church during the darkest days of the Middle ages. It's a country made up of heretics, so it's a recepy for disaster during the period. Would you agree? So, it faces the threat of numerous crusades and has enemies on all sides. In order to continue its existence it needs a strong military. But a strong military needs a lot of resources-in particular a lot of iron. So, it optimizes its iron production. There is no way to get more people to produce more iron, the country is already at the bring of extinction and there is no way more people can come from the neighbouring Christian states. This leaves them only one option-find a way to scale up iron manufacturing so fewer people can make more iron. It leads them to discover coals and than coke, than iron mills and finally steam engines. With steam engines comes industrialization and with industrialization comes chemistry and with chemistry come incendiaries, explosives and poison gases. When they reach this point in their development they become so strong that even the entire European continent united can't stop them. There they become superpower to be reckoned with. But the church can't have some heretics stir up the continent, so they ban all contacts with the heretics and thus isolate all of Europe from influences that could have industrialised the continent 500 years before this happened in our timeline. The church just can't industrialise-it would undermine its authority too much. Too much was at stake for the pope to let this virus spread, to let people see the example of heretics. So there is no Renaissance, there is no colonization, there is no reformation, there are eventually gunpowder and transoceanic ship in Europe but the strong papacy weakens the spirit of all Europe, so the continent can't muster the same strength it had managed to do in our timeline and their colonization efforts are dwarfed by this new superpower who dictates the terms of international relations between Europe and the New World. This heretic country reaches 20th century technological levels by the 1500s so it can counter ships with bombers, guns with machineguns and cavalry with tanks. Than Europe is powerless as well as China, India and anyone else. This is what a country devoted to progress in its fullest would look like and this is how to make a great power. in our timeline we just had the LUCK Great Britain wasn't that great for that much time and so eventually the rest of Europe was able to catch up. But I argue that if industrialization had happened earlier and the industrializing power had more than a century before any of its neighbours could catch up with it the result would be a bunch of societies choosing either to become subjugated by the industrial superpower or cutting all ties with it in an effort to remain true to their traditions by never challenging it. That is what progress is really about-changing the way you live, not only in technology but in all other aspects of society, too. Do you agree?
Appreciate the feedback.