ABSTRACT
Britain experienced the world's first industrial revolution. The period 1780-1830 has long been seen as the period of its classic revolution, which propelled the country from being predominantly agricultural to predominantly industrial. The Industrial Revolution was the product of no single factor, but of several acting in unison. These factors of production needed to operate in a beneficial interaction. For an economy to grow, it requires labour, demand capital, technological improvement, transport, and entrepreneurship. In the area of transport there was growth in inland and coastal shipping from more intensive working rather than major technological change; steam engines were only introduced in coastal ships and were not used in canal traffic until the mid-nineteenth century. Across the economy as a whole, rather than technology changing the economy dramatically, it seems that even more change may have come from the fact that British workers and their families started to work harder and worked for the market and not merely for subsistence.
