What were the main factors which enabled 17th and 18th century Britain to become the birthplace of the Scientific and the Industrial Revolution?

[Optical_Illusion]

I gather that some of the Britain-France divergence is thought to relate to (as others have mentioned) higher British agricultural productivity leading on to allow larger manufacturing/secondary sector. This then leads to higher supply and demand in that sector which leads to more opportunity for advantages of machines, and also just a lot more engineering knowledge and innovation being about.

This is as I undertand it something like what Joel Mokyr seemed to stress in the last podcast/lecture by him I listened to - the Brits were not really ahead in scientific theory (not unimpressive at all, but lots of Western European countries were impressive), and its more that in practice lots of invention and innovation came through which was connected to having a large body of self-taught literate and experienced individuals engaged in manufacturing and creating innovations in manufacturing. Things like Kay's Flying Shuttle that didn't really take and capital intensity or even really any more science than is generally known in Western Europe, or anything like this, but do benefit from having a dense pool of technical expertise about.

And this advantage persists for quite a while - even when continental economies have caught up in productivity in industry (which is partly through greater use of science and technical universities in industry), they have smaller industrial sectors.

This really stems from the high industrial workforce, which really comes more from higher agricultural productivity in Britain (courtesy of the British/Dutch Agricultural Revolution), to some degree food imports and trade openness (but less so than agricultural productivity), and which then allows specialisation and comparative advantage within the BI (more industry in the north of england and southern scotland).

Under this model, France/Germany, though not unlikely to have an industrial revolution, would be less likely than Britain unless they did things to agriculture that in OTL Britain and the Netherlands did and which their peers did not, that then led to a freeing up of the population for engagement in the secondary production sector. In the long term Britain has a less agriculturally employed population than France, but in the period 1600-1800, this really diverges even more so (to the point of having about 60% agricultural France and 30% England) and population booms in Britain (so it's less like the case of having a comparatively small population that is heavily engaged in trade).

 

[chornedsnorkack]

This really stems from the high industrial workforce, which really comes more from higher agricultural productivity in Britain (courtesy of the British/Dutch Agricultural Revolution), to some degree food imports and trade openness (but less so than agricultural productivity), and which then allows specialisation and comparative advantage within the BI (more industry in the north of england and southern scotland).

Under this model, France/Germany, though not unlikely to have an industrial revolution, would be less likely than Britain unless they did things to agriculture that in OTL Britain and the Netherlands did and which their peers did not, that then led to a freeing up of the population for engagement in the secondary production sector.

In 18th century, Great Britain also moved ahead of United Provinces.

 

[GeographyDude]

Empire was largely a drain on resources. At its peak, funds flowing from India to Britain contributed less than 5% of annual invested capital. Far more relevant were the agricultural and glorious revolutions.

In this era, the empire did pay; the luxury goods from the orient, and the sugar from the Caribbean holdings. The latter ones were the most valuable bits of real estate in the world at that point - there was an argument in the UK whether they should take Guadeloupe instead of Quebec after the victory in the Seven Years War. . .

Of course, the Seven Years War actually lasted nine years from 1754 to 1763, because it wasn’t declared for the first two years a state of war in fact already existed. We in the States focus on just our part and call it the French and Indian War. And it was the major factor which led Britain to increase taxes on the American colonies.

Britain was stretched short of funds. France was even in worse shape.

So, first question— However, if we put this aside and look at colonization outside major wars, what was the net effect on the UK’s budget?

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And not just the UK gov’t, what was the effect on companies that got consignments and the like?

 

[KarmaPolice]

That while the UK's debt was [by historical standards] large, it was at very least public, organised and long-term. The classic 'Perpetual 3% Consols' date from said war; many middle-class folks bought them as safe investments or as a kind of pension. The French treasury was secretive, ad-hoc and short-term - at this period, the state didn't even publish budgets. When it needed cash, it would usually borrow from wealthy individuals and/or sell more monopolies/offices and/or take a loan from a banking house. The UK also had the plus that she could disband the majority of the Army and mothball the Navy [usually the biggest cost in this era] during peace-time - a luxury Continentals didn't really have.

UK colonisation generally was usually a net zero or a plus on the Treasury's books. In this period, HM Govt had two primary money-earners; on sales and on imports. 'Sales' were usually a flat tax on, well products [payable on sale of]; playing cards, bricks, windows, newspapers, medicines and so on. 'Imports' were the duty charged on a group of luxury goods when imported to the UK; sugar, tobacco, alcohol, silk, tea, coffee and so on.

Therefore, any colony which either a) demanded products which had Sales Taxes and/or b) produced products which would have Import Duty would put the Treasury in the black. Remember; colonies were [generally] not funded by London - but by trading companies and/or private individuals [unlike say France, where colonisation was a state affair].

It was this problem which caused... *cough* the Rebellion. Of North American holdings, only the fringe [furs] and Virginia [tobacco] 'paid their way' in London - the rest was basically, a dead loss. New England should have been generating more in Sales Taxes, but she was sneakily making her own products instead of buying them from the homeland.

This wasn't much of a problem until after the Seven Years War meant that London had to pay for soldiers to defend said colonies. The Treasury was now in the red. Solution; extend the Sales Taxes onto said colonies to stop them exploiting loopholes and actually pay for their own defence. It's one of the reasons that the first 'strikes' against the British were against Customs offices and the ships which tried to clamp down on smuggling.

 

[TerenceofGod]

It began with the Agricultural Revolution - freeing workforce into urban areas.

The others helped in the development in Britain.
Glorious Revolution - helping move power out of the Aristocracy and Royalty into the burgeoning Middle Class.
Bank of England - the widespread availability of capital for capital intensive projects.
Great Power competition - the need to always be ahead of her enemies and find more resources for her Empire.
Literacy - the population was now able to read and write contracts, news, and find the nuance in sensitive documents.
Waterways - the Canal Boom helped connect the disparate mines, farms and cities into a singular network across most of England.
Industrialists and Speculators - the rich found interest and return of investment a better storage of their wealth while at the same time growing it.
Napoleon - the Napoleonic Code, metric system and myriad other reorganizations allowed a more uniform and fair system to increase population confidence.

 

[KarmaPolice]

It could be argued that the Agricultural Revolution was more pivotal by making it easier to support a substantial non-agricultural population. In the end, it's all about surpluses and British agriculture was producing perhaps one of the highest per-acre in Europe.

But you do mention one thing which is often overlooked; the canal network. Before the railway, the cheapest per-mile method of transport was water. The UK was relatively well-blessed with navigable rivers and coastline; the canals hooked up the inland areas with ultimately the coast [and from there, the world via the merchant fleet]. The technology to do this was relatively simple, what it needed more than anything else was capital - which was provided by a combination of wealthy landowners and traders looking to improve their businesses and the mobilised capital of the burgeoning middle classes looking for 'an investment'.

However, this does point to the particular mentality of 'the British aristocracy' of the period which is worth mentioning. They weren't simply magnates looking to simply sweat their holdings like in say Hungary. Nor were they riddled with snobbishness like their Spanish counterparts regarding 'being in trade'. And they weren't obsessed about land being the source of their social power, like in France. Lastly, they weren't the standoffish rentier landlord which their descendants became by the 20th Century - but active people, looking to always improve, expand, invest [such as in canals].

This meant the 'ruling class' had their feet in both the worlds of agribusiness and the mercantile. Which made them more attentive to the needs of the manufacturers, the traders and the bankers than many of their Continental brethren were.

 

[cjc]

One thing I felt I sould note, wasn't the agricultural revolution created in the Netherlands and then imported into great Britain?

 

[KarmaPolice]

Yes. Many of the financial innovations too.

 

[Socrates]

This meant the 'ruling class' had their feet in both the worlds of agribusiness and the mercantile. Which made them more attentive to the needs of the manufacturers, the traders and the bankers than many of their Continental brethren were.

It also meant that the ruling class valued money-making and business-running as a prestigious activity that policy should be catered to. Whereas in France it was seen as a slightly grubby activity - the real prize was to be a noble or to get into the Royal Court. There was a reason the French Emperor dismissed the British as a "nation of shopkeepers".

 

[DarkKayder]

It sort of is implicit in "political and economic institutions", but it's probably good to emphazise that maybe the most important part of it were legal institutions and the fact that they reached so many more people than anywhere else, meaning that large capitalist endeavours were much safer. Secure property and conract law is one of the most important elements in promoting private sector led industrialization, and this remains true today.

 

[interpoltomo]

Coal being conveniently close to the surface plus a natural border in the form of the ocean to mean not everything being wasted on land wars.

The institutions if anything I'd say actively set back industrializaiton. Compare the speed of say US/german industrialization to UK industrialization, for example.

 

[Thomas1195]

The institutions if anything I'd say actively set back industrializaiton. Compare the speed of say US/german industrialization to UK industrialization, for example.

Disagree. The US inherited the same systems from the UK, and in many cases the US was more advanced: a stronger education system, greater linkage between industries and financial institutions that allowed for the financing of big capital projects/ventures (British firms relied on internal financing mostly), a relative lack of inherited aristocracy. In fact, New England industrialized at the same time as Belgium.

For Germany, its industries did not fly until the formation of Zollverein which unified German market and standardized tolls, weight, currency, and measures.

 

[KarmaPolice]

The institutions if anything I'd say actively set back industrializaiton. Compare the speed of say US/german industrialization to UK industrialization, for example.

Think you're confusing 'start date' with 'speed'. The UK 'took longest' to industrialise because there were no industrialised countries to import from to speed things up. Every steam engine, loom etc had to be made by hand, by Britons who were learning by trial-and-error alone. Even New England and Belgium were behind the UK - and even if they only imported ideas, that made things quicker [harder to think of new thing than know said thing exists and try to make it.]

The very fact that China has managed to crowd something like ~300 years of economic development into ~65 shows just how quickly it 'can be done' if all the needed 'parts' can be bought wholesale from overseas and there are the institutions willing/able to make full use of them.

 

[cjc]

Coal being conveniently close to the surface plus a natural border in the form of the ocean to mean not everything being wasted on land wars.

The institutions if anything I'd say actively set back industrializaiton. Compare the speed of say US/german industrialization to UK industrialization, for example.

I honestly dont think coal was very important for the first industrial revolution, most factories ran on water to start whith and only switched to coal once all the good spots for water power wher used.

 

[KarmaPolice]

You don't think railways weren't a bit important?

 

[Workable Goblin]

You don't think railways weren't a bit important?

Not for the First Industrial Revolution! They came around too late, in the 1830s and really taking off in the 1840s and 1850s, by which point the Industrial Revolution had been going on for decades. That was more about textiles and maybe iron-making than railroads.

 

[KarmaPolice]

But in the 'first wave', static steam engines were vital for pumping water out of mines. This also helped the final phase of the reclamation of the Fenlands for agriculture in the 1820s - when engines were put in instead of windmills. The first phase was not that disruptive on society save in the immediate areas where the factories etc were. A decent example of this can be seen in the works of Dickens; many of them set in a kind of floating early '30s where the general atmosphere outside the major cities was almost identical to perhaps fifty years earlier.