ABSTRACT
The British Industrial Revolution stands out as one of only a few universally familiar historical concepts, and the idea of a change to factory production instead of craft-based and tradition-bound manufacturing, often performed in the home, remains powerful. Very fraught emotions, some plainly contradictory, surround our views on economic development and Blake’s vision of dark, satanic mills has been used to symbolise the start of a new and dreadful era, though he meant something quite different. The first factories were widely hated, carrying connotations of the workhouse and of industrial slavery, destroying both individuals and families. Yet they led to higher levels of production of goods at prices within the reach of groups who had previously never been able to afford them. Theoretically they opened up a road to greater material security for all, better quality of life, and so on. In the 1990s we lament the end of mass employment, and yet many of the disappearing factory jobs are not ones which people would freely choose to spend their lives doing.
