Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century resulting from the replacement of an economy based on manual labor to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. It began in England with the introduction of steam power (fueled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing). The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the nineteenth century enabled the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.

Mining

Coal mining in Britain is of great age. Before the steam engine, pits were often shallow bell pits, following a seam of coal along the surface and being abandoned as the coal was extracted. In other cases, if the geology was favourable, the coal was mined by means of an adit driven into the side of a hill. Shaft mining was done in some areas, but the limiting factor was the problem of removing water. It could be done by hauling buckets of water up the shaft by means of a horse gin, or it could be drained by an adit leading to a stream or ditch at lower level where it could flow away by gravity. A number of historic mining areas of Britain, such as the Kingswood coalfield near Bristol, still have adits running to this day, as of 2005, almost a century after the industry ceased. The introduction of the steam engine enabled shafts to be made deeper, hence increasing output.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~