Question

how did proto industrialization lead to industrial revolution.

Answer 1

Proto-industrialisation can broadly refer to manufacturing industries that co-exist with primary industries in rural areas. This might include women and children spinning in households while men were at work in the farms or in mining. Proto-industrialisation interacts with other dimensions of the economy including household structure, population, technology, and creating demand. In this essay, we will look at each of these four aspects in turn, and consider how proto-industrialisation might contribute to industrialisation, and evaluate the strength of each argument. Overall, while proto-industrialisation did have a role to play in British industrialisation, it is individually insufficient to bring about the massive changes in the 18th century.

Household structure
Proto-industrialisation helped to change the fundamental household structure of Britain. When characterising the 18th century as an “industrious revolution” rather than an “industrial revolution”, De Vries argued that massive changes were due to the changing household structure, where households were not just consuming entities, but were also producing entities. With the incentive of higher wages and the desire to consume the goods of the class above (Perkins), people were willing to work harder. Arguably, this came from proto-industrialisation: allowing women and children to work in households to earn wages resulted in more producers in British households. In the longer run, the mindset brought about by proto-industrialisation, where children and women were put to work, could have driven the child labour that went into British factories. As such, the early development in proto-industrialisation would later inspire droves of children to work in factories instead of going to school – a characteristic that is typical of British industrialisation.

While we cannot deny that child labour was rampant in British industrialisation, the causal link between proto-industrialisation and consequent child labour can be put in question. Nonetheless, the changing household structure provides a backdrop for us to understand subsequent changes in population, technology, and demand.

Population
British population increased significantly during the Industrial Revolution, and proto-industrialisation is one plausible account for changes in population. Before looking at their relationship, we should first look at the evidence that is available for population and proto-industrialisation at that time. In the 1500s, Anglican births had to be registered in parishes, and this provided data on the parents’ occupations and literacy level. Wrigley and Schoefield recently used data from these parishes, and used Generalised Inverse Projection (GIP) and family reconstitution to make population estimates – both of numbers and industrial composition. Consequently, data and evidence of proto-industrialisation can be traced back to the population group, and these elements are intertwined.

Proto-industrialisation can result in an increase in population. When rural industries are available, children can be put to work in households to increase household incomes, so families would be more willing to have children. However, reverse causality is possible. It might be due to the fact that the population was increasing and there were too many children that proto-industries formed to avoid massive unemployment. While there is some correlation between population and proto-industry in Leicestershire, evidence is more sketchy in Essex, where there was a large rural population, but little proto-industry.

It is with the increase in population that the industrial revolution could occur. British industrialisation required many people working under disciplined conditions in the factory, so to the extent that proto-industry helped to increase population, it would have aided British industrialisation.

With these factors in consideration, the role of proto-industrialisation in British development through population can be cast in doubt. While there is an intuitive argument for increasing population, causation is more difficult to read into evidence. Furthermore, the success of proto-industry might even draw people away from cities and into rural areas. The development of proto-industry also has little explanatory power for the factories that would eventually develop through the population channel
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