ABSTRACT
The 150 years since the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have seen major changes in all walks of British life - political, religious, demographic, economic and social. Transforma tions have occurred in agriculture, industry, finance, trade and transport, and continue at an increasingly accelerating rate. Thus, Britain’s major industries both during and after the Industrial Revolution coal, iron and steel, shipbuilding and textiles are much less substantial sectors of the national economy of the late twentieth century.
