ABSTRACT
Revolutions of the magnitude of the industrial revolution in England provoke historical controversy: such a revolution is a major discontinuity which a profession more skilled in explaining small changes finds difficult to understand. The link with general history is usually tenuously drawn, and more interesting than the familiar catalogues of industrial information are the gaps in knowledge and the conflicts in opinion that all accounts of the industrial revolution, even by economic historians, display. In explaining the beginnings of the industrial revolution most historians have listed several causal factors, sometimes attempting an explanation in terms of a number of factors interacting over time, but more often settling for a simple one-cause model. By 1830 industrial production contributed one-third of the British national income and foreign trade equalled in value about one-tenth of national income; both were vitally important to the national economy and its growth. The factory growth of both the iron and cotton industries depended on coal and communications.
