The particular conjunction of factors that led up to the Industrial Revolution looks propitious to me and I wonder how much it could be derailed. Without alien intervention there's always going to be a lot of coal under Britain, but the political and economic situation are quite volatile.
To delay the revolution the alternatives of greater enserfment or an increased rights and power over the land for agricultural workers look likely to me to tie people to countryside slow the creation of a proletariat, and I wonder if a different settlement of the English civil war or an alternate civil war could cause either of those. Or just long-term religious and political strife could do it too. I'd love to hear other possibilities.
As for the WI part of the WI, there are broad questions of whether the delay would change how European expansion would encounter Asia and Africa, how competition between European powers would go, what the political makeup of European countries would be, and all kinds of things.
In the short term England or Britain would doubtless lose out relative to other powers though.
To delay the revolution the alternatives of greater enserfment or an increased rights and power over the land for agricultural workers look likely to me to tie people to countryside slow the creation of a proletariat, and I wonder if a different settlement of the English civil war or an alternate civil war could cause either of those. Or just long-term religious and political strife could do it too. I'd love to hear other possibilities.
As for the WI part of the WI, there are broad questions of whether the delay would change how European expansion would encounter Asia and Africa, how competition between European powers would go, what the political makeup of European countries would be, and all kinds of things.
In the short term England or Britain would doubtless lose out relative to other powers though.