📚 Class 10 History – Chapter 4
💠 The Age of Industrialisation 💠
🔹 Before the Industrial Revolution
- Proto-industrialisation → Phase before factories in Europe.
- 17th–18th century: Merchants supplied 💰 money to peasants & artisans to produce goods for international trade.
- In towns, guilds (समूह जिन्हें विशेष अधिकार मिले थे) had monopoly rights, so merchants moved to countryside.
- Peasants agreed → they could earn money + continue farming small plots.
- Thus, proto-industrial system = a network of trade controlled by merchants.
🔹 The Coming Up of the Factory
- 🏭 First factories → England (1730s).
- By late 18th century, number of factories increased.
- Cotton = symbol of the new era.
- Richard Arkwright → invented cotton mill, bringing all machines & workers under one roof.
🔹 The Pace of Industrial Change
- Dynamic industries → cotton & metals.
- Cotton = leading till 1840s, then iron & steel.
- New industries could not easily replace traditional industries.
- Traditional industries not stagnant → slow growth.
- Technological change = slow & gradual.
⚙️ James Watt (1781) → improved steam engine (earlier by Newcomen).
👨🔧 Mathew Boulton → manufactured Watt’s model.
➡️ Steam engines used widely much later.
🔹 Hand Labour vs Steam Power
- Britain = abundance of workers → cheap labour.
- Machines = costly investment 💰 → so many industries still preferred hand labour.
- Seasonal demand → workers hired only when needed.
🔹 Life of the Workers
- Jobs required personal networks (friendship/kinship).
- Till mid-19th century → jobs were scarce.
- Early 19th century → wages increased, but fear of unemployment grew.
- Workers hostile to new machines → e.g., Spinning Jenny.
- After 1840s → building activities gave more jobs:
- 🛤️ Railways, 🏠 houses, 🕳️ tunnels, 🚰 drainage, 🚢 embankments.
🔹 Industrialisation in the Colonies
🌸 The Age of Indian Textiles
- Before machine industries → Indian silk & cotton = dominated world market.
- Indian merchants + bankers = controlled export trade.
- After 1750s → European companies rose:
- Got concessions from local rulers.
- Monopoly rights to trade.
- Shift from old ports → new ports under European control.
- Result → Indian traders declined, Europeans gained power.
👕 What Happened to Weavers?
- 1760s onwards → East India Company consolidated power.
- Adopted strict control system:
- Removed middle traders & brokers.
- Forced weavers to work for Company only.
- Gave loans (advances) to buy raw materials.
- Weavers had to handover cloth to Gomastha (Company agent).
😞 Problems:
- Harsh gomasthas (no social ties).
- Weavers revolted in many regions.
- Many closed workshops → turned to agriculture labour.
🏭 Manchester Comes to India
- 1772: Henry Patullo → “Demand for Indian textiles will never decline.”
- But by 19th century → exports declined.
- British cotton goods imports rose 📈.
- Problems for Indian weavers:
- Export market collapsed.
- Local market flooded with Manchester goods.
- 1860s → Raw cotton supply shortage (prices rose as exports to Britain increased).
- By late 19th century → even Indian factories produced machine goods, hurting artisans.
🔹 Factories Come Up in India
- 1854 → First cotton mill in Bombay 🏭 (production in 1856).
- By 1862 → 4 more cotton mills.
- 1855 → First jute mill in Bengal; another in 1862.
- 1860s →
- Elgin Mill at Kanpur.
- First cotton mill at Ahmedabad.
- 1874 → First spinning & weaving mill in Madras.
✨ Exam Tip (परीक्षा हेतु सुझाव):
- Focus on differences between hand labour & machine industries.
- Prepare points on impact of British policies on Indian weavers.
- Revise timeline of mills in India.
🏭 The Early Entrepreneurs
- Trade started in the late 18th century.
- British exported opium to China and imported tea from China to England.
- Famous Indian entrepreneurs:
- Dwarkanath Tagore → fortune in China trade (Bengal).
- Jamsetjee Tata & Dinshaw Petit (Parsis) → built industrial empires (Bombay).
- Seth Hukumchand → set up 1st Indian jute mill (Calcutta, 1917).
- Indians were forced to export raw materials (cotton, wheat, opium, indigo).
- European Managing Agencies: Bird Heiglers & Co., Andrew Yule, Jardine Skinner & Co.
👷 Where Did the Workers Come From?
- Workers migrated from nearby villages for jobs in mills.
- Eg: 50% workers in Bombay cotton mills (1911) came from Ratnagiri.
- Kanpur mills got workers from surrounding villages.
- Despite high demand, jobs were limited.
- Jobber (recruiter) helped workers get employment & settled them in cities.
⚙️ Peculiarities of Industrial Growth
- European agencies → focused on tea, coffee, jute, indigo, mining (for export).
- Indian mills produced yarn (used by Indian weavers & exported to China).
- Swadeshi Movement (1906) → boycott of foreign cloth, boost to Indian industries.
- First World War (1914–18):
- Industrial growth boomed.
- Indian factories produced army uniforms, tents, leather boots, saddles etc.
- After war → Manchester industries declined, Indian industries rose.
🧵 Small-Scale Industries Predominate
- Most workers in small workshops & households, not big factories.
- Handicraft & handloom cloth production expanded.
- Some weavers survived due to new technology & producing fine cloth.
- But → long hours, women & children also worked.
- Hand production remained integral to industrialisation.
🛍️ Market for Goods & Advertisements
- Advertisements made products look desirable & necessary.
- Forms of ads: newspapers, magazines, hoardings, calendars, TV (later).
- Manchester cloth bundles → “MADE IN MANCHESTER” label = trust symbol.
- Indian gods & goddesses used in labels & calendars.
- Ads also carried Swadeshi nationalist messages.
✅ Conclusion
- Industrialisation = major technological changes + new factories + industrial labour force.
- But hand technology & small-scale industries remained equally important.
