Explain the historical development of the cotton industry in Britain and appraise its key role in...

Question

Explain the historical development of the cotton industry in Britain and appraise its key role in the first industrialisation.

This assignment requires students to research issues in the literature and acquire knowledge on the specific topic of the question. It also involves the application of economic reasoning to understand the issues in their historical context. The essay requires you to construct an argument using historical information and citing studies of economic historians. A starting place is the reading list for the related topics from which more specific sources can be followed up. The Harvard citation method should be employed.

David · Accepted Answer

Introduction  
 For an effective growth of any economy, the most important aspects cover revolutionary 
changes in the industry plantations along with solid infrastructure built by the support of 
government policies. In the context of cotton industry development and its impact n industrial 
revolution in UK during the 18
th
 century, it can be seen that the switching of industry from wool 
to cotton and the inventions to speed up the process of producing cotton base clothes actually 
changed the whole structure and scenario of British economy. If seen from broad economical 
perspective, the cotton industrial growth gave way to rapid spread of industrial revolution 
because it took a traditional domestic business to industrial production level and the mechanical 
inventions functioned like a catalyst in the process of providing supportive growth to the 
transport, increase in labor force and international trading progress.  
The Change in Traditional Production of Wool  
 At first, it is important to note in this context that prior to the production of cotton on 
such a large scale, Britain had the popular industry of growing wool and making fabrics which 
were based on it. In fact, wool based production was limited to the British households; people 
used to buy wool from the open market and sell their end product—the clothes made of wool—in 
the domestic markets only. This business cycle was limited to the premise of the Britain only up 
to the early decades of the 18
th
 century when the importing of cotton from America began to 
appear in the local market of Britain.  
 In fact, the import of cotton to British market was a new thing and it actually changed the 
mentality of people who were producing wool based clothes; cotton was an easy raw material 
from which, the making of clothes was easy too. It was comparatively thin and had more 
stretching nature then wool. Therefore, the domestic workers who had skilled hands in making 
wool based clothes now began to show interest in cotton. However, it is also a noticeable factor 
that the import of cotton was the result of the American policy of expanding business overseas. 
The main objective of this expansion was to cover the international market and mark the 
presence of the nation strongly in the area of international trading. Form this tipping point, after 
viewing the superiority of the fabric produced by cotton if compared to wool, the domestic 
British market began to feel the impact of the cotton based production.

Explain the historical development of the cotton industry in Britain and appraise its key role in the first industrialisation. This assignment requires students to research issues in the literature...

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