Industry 1.0

On more than one occasion we have spoken about the concept of industry 4.0 and its importance in the current energy scenario (for example, it was the axis of the Hackathon Industry held in 2015). The term was coined in 2011 at the Hannover Messe (the largest industrial fair in the world) and means that humanity is on the threshold of a fourth industrial revolution, which will turn our societies upside down, as happened with its predecessors, and that it will undoubtedly be focused on digital transformation; new technologies that will make our lives easier but in turn, it will present us with new challenges.

There will be a series of posts in which we will talk about the three industrial revolutions that human beings experienced during the last centuries, and about the innovations that resulted from them, and the series will end with an article focussing on industry 4.0: What it is, its main characteristics and the kind of advantages it could provide for us.

Let's start at the beginning: The First Industrial Revolution.

A brief history

The First Industrial Revolution Originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-eighteenth century. It was a process of technological (but also social and economic) transformation which was decisive for Europe and later for other parts of the world. During this period, which lasted approximately eighty years, humanity lived through an era of advances and innovations that had not been paralleled since the Neolithic era, that is more than five thousand years earlier.

Industrialisation had already begun in Europe in the sixteenth century, but due to a number of factors it accelerated in England: The expansion of trade, agricultural improvements, an increase in population (meaning there was more labour) and the development of new technologies led first Great Britain and then all Europe to contemplate how the economy which was sustained mainly by trade and agriculture, began to turn to industry with the support of a rise in the use of machines. In other words, this revolution led to the progressive depopulation of rural areas and the emergence of large cities, with the mechanisation of many jobs that were previously manual as a result of extraordinarily disruptive innovations.

These events had an immense, irreversible effect on the world and brought about enormously increased wealth in all the countries involved. This led to a boom in private property, the strengthening of banks, the creation of the free market and, ultimately, the creation of a concept that is very relevant in our century: Capitalism.

The main innovations

As we said before, during this stage of such transcendental changes, which meant a break with the established order over many centuries, human beings contemplated the irruption of new technologies and inventions developed by true visionaries, which favoured a technological boom in the hectic times that were experienced. There is no doubt that two sectors were more affected than the rest: Textiles and transport. Here are the main innovations that drove them.

Textiles

Textiles were the first industry to develop. In the United Kingdom, the production of fabrics was already a very important economic activity, but at a craft level. After the revolution, large textile factories began to be built, largely as a result of some very innovative inventions.

One of them was the first multi-coil spinning machine, designed by the British engineer James Hargreaves in 1764, and christened the "Spinning Jenny." Its development proved to be a great advance in the textile sector, since growing demand in the industry could not be met by single-coil machines; The Spinning Jenny had eight reels, rotated by a large wheel. The machine became one of the symbols of the Industrial Revolution, although its creator had to suffer attacks by the dangerous Luddites, a movement formed by English artisans to fight against new technologies. Later, Samuel Crompton perfected Hargreaves' idea by designing the spinning mule, an improved version of Jenny.

Another was the famous Water Frame, patented by Richard Arkwright also from the United Kingdom, a machine specialising in carding cotton. Introduced in 1769, this mechanical spinning machine produced the best quality yarn in the country, superior even to that from the Jenny. Arkwright became rich as a result of this invention and also patented the first mechanical loom which from 1789 onwards took advantage of the steam engine to improve its performance (previously it had worked with hydraulic energy).

Transport

Although we have already spoken here about the steam engine some time ago we will add a few more lines because of its vital importance in the First Industrial Revolution. Its invention is attributed to the Scottish engineer James Watt and it was based on the designs of an atmospheric steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen in the early 18th century. Watt's invention was the key to the end of agriculture as the primary means of making a living, and completely revolutionised the transportation of people and goods.

Thanks to Watt's engine, in 1783 the Marquis de Jouffroy D’Abbans, a French engineer, launched the first steamboat, the Pyroscaphe, on the Saône River. Once this milestone had been reached, other innovators, such as the Americans John Fitch and Robert Fulton, designed new prototypes that, once they became operational, represented an advance never before seen in river navigation. It was in the mid-19th century when steamboats reached their peak with the use of cylindrical boilers, inheritances from the railway.

That is exactly what we would like to talk about next. Or, more specifically, the innovative locomotives that emerged after the invention of the steam engine. It was precisely John Watt who first patented the steam engine in 1769, although it was actually the English engineer and inventor Richard Trevithick who built the first steam locomotive in 1804. Unfortunately, the rails of the railway did not support the weight of the engine so their use was discarded. Another English engineer, John Blenkinsop, based on previous work on this type of machine, in 1811 patented an innovative system of tracks, called "rack and pinion", which eventually led to the creation of a new steam locomotive, given the name of "Salamanca" by Matthew Murray, which began transporting coal from Middleton to Leeds in 1812. A few years later, George Stephenson, a British engineer known as "the father of railways", built the first public railway lines using steam locomotives and forever changed the transport sector in Europe and, later, all around the world.

Energy

It is the energy sector which most concerns us in this blog, and it would be a number of years before we would see a spectacular boom in electricity. But it is true that there were already some significant changes during the First Industrial Revolution. For example, there was a considerable increase in the use of coal, to the detriment of vegetable carbon, due to its greater energy power. Coal was essential in the development of the industrial revolution, as it was the fuel used by the steam engine designed by Watt.