Britain's Economy Before the Machines

In the early 1700s most British people lived in villages and worked the land, but Britain was already unusually commercial. Many rural families combined farming with spinning, weaving or nail-making for sale, and goods moved along rivers, coasts and roads to busy markets. London was one of Europe's largest cities, and its demand pulled food, coal and cloth from across the country.

Wages in southern England were high compared with much of Europe and Asia, and coal was cheap where it was mined. A growing middle class bought tea, sugar, printed cloth and pottery, creating a consumer culture some historians call an 'industrious revolution', in which families worked harder to buy new goods. These features did not make industrialization inevitable, but they created markets, skills and incentives that inventors and investors could later exploit.