ABSTRACT
A turnpike is a fixed barrier, usually in the form of a spike, placed across a road. Social historians, in particular, see something more in the developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Another historian has usefully identified four different aspects of change with which historians have been concerned when they use the phrase industrial revolution. The development of the so-called Fiscal-Military State benefited the moneyed interest, helped to provide stability and security for Englands banking system and thus encouraged both investment and what is now called an appropriate risk appetite. The British fiscal-military state also operated under the rule of law, as defined by the Revolution Settlement, which provided firm protection at least for its propertied citizens. Patrick Colquhoun stated in 1814 that it was impossible to contemplate the progress of manufactures in Great Britain within the last thirty years without wonder and astonishment. The political origins of the industrial revolution are now inescapable.
