The Age of Industrialisation – Class 10 Notes & Worksheet

Class 10 · India and the Contemporary World – II · Chapter 4

The Age of Industrialisation

Complete Notes · Exercise Answers · Practice Worksheet

📌 Introduction

This chapter examines how industrialisation began — first in Britain and then in colonial India — challenging the popular myth that the Industrial Revolution was simply about factory growth and technological progress. Hand technology and small-scale production remained vital throughout.

1️⃣ Before the Industrial Revolution

Key Term

Proto-industrialisation — Large-scale industrial production for an international market that existed BEFORE factories, carried out in homes and villages (not in factories). The term "proto" means early/first form.

How Proto-Industrialisation Worked

Merchants in towns supply money

→

Peasants/artisans in countryside produce goods

→

Goods collected & finished in London

→

Exported to international market

Why countryside? Merchants could not expand in towns because powerful trade guilds (associations that trained craftspeople, controlled production, regulated competition, and restricted new entrants) blocked them. Rulers gave guilds monopoly rights.

Why peasants agreed: Open fields were disappearing, commons were being enclosed. Peasants had tiny plots and needed extra income. Working for merchants let them stay on their land while supplementing income.

England's Proto-Industrial Network (Example: Wool Cloth)

Merchant buys wool from stapler

→

Spinners spin yarn

→

Weavers weave cloth

→

Fullers & Dyers

→

Finished in London

→

Exported

Each clothier controlled 20–25 workers per stage = hundreds of workers total. London = the "finishing centre."

Coming Up of the Factory (1.1)

Earliest factories in England: 1730s; multiplied in late 18th century.
First symbol of the new era: Cotton. Britain imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton in 1760 → soared to 22 million pounds by 1787.
18th-century inventions improved carding, twisting, spinning, rolling → enhanced output per worker.
Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill — brought all processes under one roof for better supervision, quality control, and labour regulation.

Pace of Industrial Change (1.2) — 4 Key Points

🏭 Dynamic Industries

Cotton led up to 1840s; then iron & steel took over. By 1873 Britain exported iron/steel worth £77 million (double its cotton export).

🔧 Traditional Industries Survived

Less than 20% workforce in advanced sectors even at end of 19th century. Food processing, pottery, glass, furniture — small innovations drove growth.

⏱️ Slow Technological Change

New technology was expensive, often broke down. At start of 19th century only 321 steam engines in all of England. Merchants were cautious.

👷 Typical Worker

Mid-19th century typical worker was not a machine operator but a traditional craftsperson and labourer.

2️⃣ Hand Labour and Steam Power

Why industrialists preferred hand labour in Victorian Britain:

No shortage of labour — poor peasants and vagrants flooded cities → wages were low.
No need to invest large capital in machines that replaced cheap human labour.
Demand was seasonal (gas works, breweries → busy in winter; bookbinders → Christmas; waterfront → winter ship repairs). Hand workers could be hired and dismissed seasonally.
Many products needed intricate designs (500 varieties of hammers, 45 kinds of axes) requiring human skill, not machines.
Upper classes (aristocrats, bourgeoisie) preferred handmade goods — symbols of refinement and class. Machine-made goods were exported to colonies.
In labour-scarce countries (like USA) machines were preferred; Britain had plentiful human labour.

Life of Workers (2.1)

Getting a job depended heavily on social networks (friends/relatives in factories).
Many waited weeks — slept under bridges, in night refuges, casual wards (Poor Law).
Wages rose slightly in early 19th century, but real wages fell during Napoleonic Wars (prices rose faster).
About 10% of urban population were extremely poor even in good times; in slumps (like 1830s), unemployment reached 35–75% in different regions.
Workers feared Spinning Jenny (invented by James Hargreaves, 1764) — it reduced labour demand by spinning multiple threads simultaneously. Women attacked the machines.
After 1840s: building boom → roads widened, railway stations built, tunnels dug, sewers laid. Workers in transport industry doubled in 1840s and again in next 30 years.

3️⃣ Industrialisation in the Colonies (India)

Age of Indian Textiles (3.1)

Before machine industries, India dominated global textile market — especially fine cotton and silk.
Trade routes: Punjab → Afghanistan → Persia → Central Asia (via camel/land); Sea routes via Surat (Gujarat coast → Gulf, Red Sea), Masulipatam (Coromandel coast → SE Asia), Hoogly (Bengal → SE Asia).
Indian merchants, bankers and supply merchants controlled this export network.
By 1750s: European companies gained power → secured monopoly rights → Surat and Hoogly declined → Bombay and Calcutta grew.
Surat's trade value: Rs 16 million (late 17th century) → fell to Rs 3 million by 1740s.

What Happened to Weavers? (3.2)

After EIC established political power in Bengal & Carnatic (1760s–1770s), it controlled weavers through:

Step 1: Gomastha System

EIC eliminated existing traders and brokers. Appointed paid servants called gomasthas to supervise weavers, collect supplies, and examine cloth quality.

Step 2: System of Advances

Weavers were given loans to buy raw material. Those who took loans had to hand cloth only to the gomastha — could not sell to anyone else. Weavers were trapped.

Impact on weavers: Gomasthas were outsiders — arrogant, marched with sepoys, beat/flogged weavers for delays. Prices from EIC were miserably low. Weavers had to lease land, devote full time to weaving. Many deserted villages, revolted, or switched to agriculture.

Manchester Comes to India (3.3)

📉 Decline of Indian Textile Exports

Piece-goods = 33% of India's exports in 1811–12; fell to just 3% by 1850–51 as British cotton goods flooded India.

📈 Rise of Manchester Imports

By 1850 cotton piece-goods = over 31% of Indian imports; by 1870s over 50%. Machine-made goods were cheaper than hand-woven cloth.

🌿 Raw Cotton Problem (1860s)

American Civil War → USA cotton cut off → Britain turned to India → raw cotton prices shot up in India → weavers could not afford raw material.

Double crisis for Indian weavers: Export market collapsed + local market flooded with cheap Manchester goods. By late 19th century, Indian factories also began flooding the market with machine goods.

4️⃣ Factories Come Up in India

Key Milestones

1854

First cotton mill in Bombay set up; went into production 1856.

1855

First jute mill in Bengal set up.

1860s

Elgin Mill started in Kanpur; first cotton mill of Ahmedabad set up.

1862

4 mills operating in Bombay — 94,000 spindles and 2,150 looms. Second jute mill in Bengal.

1874

First spinning and weaving mill of Madras began production.

1912

J.N. Tata set up first iron and steel works at Jamshedpur.

1917

Seth Hukumchand set up the first Indian jute mill in Calcutta.

Early Entrepreneurs (4.1) — Who Were They?

Entrepreneur	Region	Source of Initial Wealth
Dwarkanath Tagore	Bengal	China trade; set up 6 joint-stock companies in 1830s–1840s
Dinshaw Petit & Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata	Bombay (Parsi)	Exports to China + raw cotton shipments to England
Seth Hukumchand	Calcutta (Marwari)	China trade; set up first Indian jute mill (1917)
G.D. Birla	—	Father & grandfather traded with China

Till WWI, European Managing Agencies (Bird Heiglers & Co., Andrew Yule, Jardine Skinner & Co.) controlled large sectors. Indian financiers provided capital; Europeans made business decisions. Indian businessmen were NOT allowed in European chambers of commerce.

Where Did Workers Come From? (4.2)

Workers came from surrounding districts — peasants and artisans with no village work.
Over 50% workers in Bombay cotton industries (1911) came from Ratnagiri district.
Mill workers moved between village and city — returned for harvests/festivals.
Getting jobs was difficult: numbers seeking work > jobs available. Entry restricted through jobbers — trusted old workers who recruited from their villages, settled migrants in cities, took money/gifts in return for favours.
Factories: 584,000 workers in 1901 → 2,436,000 by 1946.

5️⃣ Peculiarities of Industrial Growth

European Agencies focused on tea, coffee plantations, mining, indigo, jute — mainly for export, not Indian consumption.
Indian businessmen avoided competing with Manchester — early mills produced coarse cotton yarn (not fabric). Yarn was used by Indian handloom weavers or exported to China.
Swadeshi movement → boycott of foreign cloth → Indian mills shifted from yarn to cloth. Cotton piece-goods production doubled between 1900 and 1912.
Till WWI, industrial growth was slow.
WWI boost: British mills busy with war → Manchester imports to India declined → Indian mills got a vast home market + supplied war needs (jute bags, uniforms, tents, boots, saddles).
After WWI: Manchester could never regain its position. Britain's economy crumbled (unable to compete with USA, Germany, Japan). Local Indian industrialists captured the home market.

Small-Scale Industries Predominate (5.1)

67% of large industries (in 1911) located in Bengal and Bombay.
Only 5% in 1911 and 10% in 1931 of industrial labour worked in registered factories. Rest worked in small workshops and household units.
Handloom cloth production nearly tripled between 1900 and 1940 despite mill competition.
Key innovation: fly shuttle (mechanical device using ropes/pulleys for weaving weft into warp) → increased productivity, reduced labour demand. By 1941, over 35% of handlooms fitted with fly shuttles (70–80% in Travancore, Madras, Mysore, Cochin, Bengal).
Weavers of finer varieties (Banarasi/Baluchari saris, Madras lungis/handkerchiefs) survived better — mills could not copy intricate designs. Demand from well-to-do was more stable than for coarse cloth.

6️⃣ Market for Goods — Advertisements

New consumers created through advertisements — shape minds, create new needs.
Manchester manufacturers put labels on cloth bundles to indicate place of manufacture and quality ("MADE IN MANCHESTER").
Labels carried images of Indian gods and goddesses (Krishna, Saraswati, Lakshmi) — gave divine approval, made foreign goods seem familiar.
Manufacturers printed calendars — even illiterate people could see the ads daily in tea shops and homes.
Images of emperors, nawabs, historic figures (e.g., Maharaja Ranjit Singh) were used — suggested royal quality and respect.
Indian manufacturers used swadeshi message — "If you care for the nation, buy Indian products." Advertisements became vehicles of nationalist sentiment.

✅ Exercise Answers

Write in Brief — Q1: Explain the Following

Q1(a)

Women workers in Britain attacked the Spinning Jenny.

The Spinning Jenny (invented by James Hargreaves, 1764) could spin multiple threads at once, replacing many hand spinners. Women who depended on hand spinning for income feared they would lose their livelihoods. To protect their jobs, they attacked and broke the new machines. This conflict continued for a long time.

Q1(b)

In the seventeenth century merchants from towns in Europe began employing peasants and artisans within villages.

Merchants could not expand production inside towns because powerful trade guilds blocked new entrants and controlled production. So merchants moved to the countryside, where poor peasants — who had lost common lands and needed extra income — eagerly worked for them. This was the system of proto-industrialisation.

Q1(c)

The port of Surat declined by the end of the eighteenth century.

Surat had been a major pre-colonial port connecting India to the Gulf and Red Sea. As European companies (especially EIC) gained power and monopoly rights to trade, trade shifted to the new ports of Bombay and Calcutta, which were controlled by Europeans. Old ports like Surat lost trade, credit dried up, and local bankers went bankrupt. Surat's trade fell from Rs 16 million (late 17th century) to Rs 3 million by 1740s.

Q1(d)

The East India Company appointed gomasthas to supervise weavers in India.

After gaining political power, EIC wanted to eliminate competition, control costs, and ensure regular textile supplies. It appointed gomasthas (paid servants) to directly supervise weavers, collect cloth, and check quality. Through the system of advances (loans), weavers were tied to the EIC and could not sell to other buyers. This replaced the earlier system where supply merchants had friendly relations with weavers.

Write in Brief — Q2: True or False

Q2(a) At end of 19th century, 80% of workforce in Europe was in advanced industrial sector.

✗ FALSE. Less than 20% of the total workforce was employed in technologically advanced industrial sectors even at the end of the 19th century.

Q2(b) International market for fine textiles was dominated by India till the 18th century.

✓ TRUE. Before machine industries, India dominated the global textile market — silk and fine cotton from India were in great demand internationally.

Q2(c) The American Civil War resulted in reduction of cotton exports from India.

✗ FALSE. The American Civil War increased cotton exports from India — Britain turned to India when US cotton was cut off. This caused raw cotton prices in India to shoot up, harming Indian weavers.

Q2(d) The introduction of the fly shuttle enabled handloom workers to improve their productivity.

✓ TRUE. The fly shuttle was a mechanical device that placed horizontal threads (weft) into vertical threads (warp). It increased productivity per worker, sped up production, and allowed wider cloth to be woven.

Write in Brief — Q3: What is Proto-Industrialisation?

Proto-industrialisation refers to large-scale industrial production for an international market that existed BEFORE factories, in the 17th and 18th centuries. Merchants from European towns went to the countryside, gave money to peasants and artisans, and persuaded them to produce goods at home. The goods were then collected and sold in international markets. It was controlled by merchants and produced by workers in their family homes, not in factories. The term "proto" means the early or first form of something.

Discuss Questions

Why did some industrialists in 19th-century Europe prefer hand labour over machines?

1. Cheap labour: Poor peasants flooded cities → wages were low → no need to invest in expensive machines.
2. Seasonal demand: Industries like gas works, breweries, bookbinding had seasonal peaks — hand workers could be hired and dismissed easily; machines ran year-round.
3. Intricate goods: Many products (500 types of hammers, 45 types of axes) needed human skill; machines only produced standardised goods.
4. Class preference: Aristocrats and bourgeoisie preferred handmade goods as symbols of refinement — machine-made goods were for export to colonies.

How did the East India Company procure regular supplies of cotton and silk textiles from Indian weavers?

EIC used two main methods:
1. Gomastha system: Appointed paid servants called gomasthas to directly supervise weavers, collect cloth supplies, and examine quality. This eliminated earlier supply merchants and brokers.
2. System of advances (loans): Once orders were placed, weavers were given loans to buy raw material. Those who accepted loans had to hand over cloth only to the gomastha — they could not sell to any other buyer. This trapped weavers in a system of debt and dependency, while paying them miserably low prices.

Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War?

1. British mills busy: British mills were occupied with war production (for the army) → Manchester imports into India declined sharply.
2. Vast home market: Indian mills suddenly had a large unmet domestic demand to supply.
3. War supplies: Indian factories were asked to supply war needs — jute bags, army uniforms, tents, leather boots, horse saddles, and many other items.
4. Expansion: New factories were set up, old ones ran multiple shifts, more workers were employed, everyone worked longer hours. Industrial production boomed over the war years.

⚡ Quick Recall — Key Facts

1st factories in England → 1730s Raw cotton import: 2.5M (1760) → 22M lbs (1787) Spinning Jenny → James Hargreaves, 1764 Steam engine → James Watt, 1781 321 steam engines in England → early 19th century Surat trade: Rs 16M → Rs 3M (1740s) Piece-goods export: 33% (1811) → 3% (1850) 1st cotton mill Bombay → 1854 1st jute mill Bengal → 1855 1st iron & steel → Jamshedpur, 1912 Factory workers: 584K (1901) → 2.4M (1946) Fly shuttle → 35% handlooms by 1941 Handloom output: tripled 1900–1940 Cotton goods doubled → 1900–1912

📝 Practice Worksheet

Name: __________________________ Class: _______ Date: _________

✏️ Part A – Fill in the Blanks

1. Large-scale industrial production for an international market before factories is called .

2. Associations of producers that trained craftspeople and controlled production in towns were called .

3. created the cotton mill, bringing all production processes under one roof.

4. The Spinning Jenny was invented by in the year .

5. The steam engine was improved and patented by in 1781.

6. The port of connected India to the Gulf and Red Sea ports before colonial rule.

7. The EIC appointed paid servants called to supervise weavers.

8. Cotton piece-goods as a percentage of India's exports fell from 33% (1811) to by 1850–51.

9. The first cotton mill in Bombay came up in .

10. J.N. Tata set up the first iron and steel works in India at in 1912.

11. The shuttle was a mechanical device that increased handloom productivity.

12. Indian manufacturers used advertisements to convey the message of buying Indian products.

🔗 Part B – Match the Columns

Proto-industrialisation
Richard Arkwright
Gomastha
Surat's trade slump
Fly shuttle
Seth Hukumchand

i. Rs 16 million → Rs 3 million
ii. First Indian jute mill, Calcutta 1917
iii. Large-scale production before factories
iv. Increased handloom productivity
v. EIC supervisor over weavers
vi. Created the cotton mill

💭 Part C – Short Answer (2–3 sentences)

1. What were trade guilds? Why did they prevent merchants from expanding in towns?

2. How did the system of advances trap Indian weavers?

3. Why did Indian weavers face problems during the American Civil War?

4. What role did the jobber play in Indian mills?

5. Why did handloom weavers of fine cloth survive better than coarse cloth weavers?

🔁 Part D – True or False (Correct the false ones)

1. The earliest factories in England came up in the 1850s.

2. India dominated the international fine textile market before the age of machine industries.

3. The Spinning Jenny reduced the demand for labour.

4. Manchester could easily recapture the Indian market after World War I.

5. The jobber was a trusted worker who helped recruit labourers from his village.

✍️ Part E – Long Answer (Write in 80–100 words)

1. Describe how the First World War helped industrial growth in India.

2. Explain the two main methods used by the East India Company to control Indian weavers.