- Define and explain Railways, Ships and Trade in your own words
- Use key terms such as Factory system accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Railways, Ships and Trade: the transport revolution that carried British goods around the world.
The transport revolution that carried British goods around the world.
Key ideas
Industry needed the world
Lancashire spun cotton it could not grow; the cotton came from plantations, including those worked by enslaved people before abolition. Finished cloth was then sold back across the globe. The factory system was never purely British — it was a world system with Britain at its centre.
Machines reorganised human life
Before factories, most goods were made at home or in small workshops, and workers set their own hours. The factory brought hundreds of workers under one roof, timed by the clock and the steam engine. Work became faster and cheaper to organise — but also more disciplined and dangerous.
Key term — Factory system: A way of making goods where workers use machines together in one large building, on set hours for wages.
Name two inventions of the Industrial Revolution.
The spinning jenny and the power loom (or the steam engine).
Answer: The spinning jenny and the power loom (or the steam engine).
- Forgetting the global side Britain's industry depended on raw materials from around the world and markets overseas. The story is global, not just a British one.
- Saying steam power started the Industrial Revolution Water power drove the first factories; steam became dominant later. The revolution had several stages, not one starting moment.
Practice
They needed imported raw cotton and overseas markets to sell finished cloth.
Water wheels, using fast-flowing rivers.
Children worked very long hours, often twelve or more a day, in dangerous conditions.
It limited the working hours of children in textile mills and introduced inspectors.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "Factory system"?
Who were the Luddites?
- Railways, Ships and Trade: the transport revolution that carried British goods around the world.
- Industry needed the world: Lancashire spun cotton it could not grow; the cotton came from plantations, including those worked by enslaved people before abolition.
- Raw materials: Natural substances used to make goods, such as raw cotton for cloth or iron ore for machines.
- Watch out for: forgetting the global side