The Transport Revolution

Term Paper # 95436

Computer and Technology > Technology
History > British

A short foray into the arguments and evidence surrounding transport and the changes made in it in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

1,881 words () | 7 sources | APA | 2007 United Kingdom

Paper Summary:

This paper goes into some discussion of the revolutionary (or otherwise) nature of changes in transport in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain. Changes in roads, canals and the introduction of railways are all discussed. A comparison between pre- and post-1750 transport is also included. The paper contains a wide range of facts and figures to back up and nuance the argument running throughout the paper that it was a process of slow evolution and improvement that took place within the transport industry rather than a process of revolution.

From the Paper:

"The development of the canal system in Britain could be seen as part of an evolution of Britain's waterways. Coupled with this it could be seen as a bridge between the road system, which would not have been capable of bearing the load of industrialization, and the railways, which would come to dominate the transport scene later down the line - in this respect the significance of canals should not be underplayed. Whilst the canal was one step of an evolutionary process of improvement it was nonetheless a more ambitious and larger step than the ones preceding it. Deepening and widening of natural waterways, for example the deepening of the River Douglas between 1719 and 1727 , was common in the eighteenth century, and facilitated an increase in the amount of navigable water in Britain. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Bagwell, Philip, The Transport Revolution from 1770, (Batsford, 1974)
Deane, Phyllis, The First Industrial Revolution, (CUP, 1965)
Dyos, H.J + Aldcroft, D.H., British Transport, An Economic Survey from the Seventeenth Century to the Twentieth, (LUP, 1969)
Floud, Roderick + Johnson, Paul, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, Vol. 1, Industrialisation, 1700-1860, (CUP, 2004)
Lane, Peter, The Industrial Revolution: The Birth of the Modern Age, (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1978)