Industrial Britain

As Great Britain became industrialized, the quiet pastoral scenes were shattered by the clattering din from new factories.

During the day, the sky was darkened by smoke from the new factories while at night, the sky was illuminated by the eerie glow of furnaces. The landscape was radically changed; the grounds were crisscrossed by canals and railroads. Bridges and tunnels, awesome symbols of man’s apparent dominance over nature, also dominated the scene. Chimneys trailed smoke across its skies. New towns and cities, teeming with the members of a new, industrial working class, the proletariat, emerged. Initially, I was startled and bit unsure about all this monumental change, as would anyone be. Later, however, I embraced it, and even sought to further these industries and introduce them to India. Some may wonder why Britain, out of all the European nations, was the one to rise to prominence and glory. What is there to be puzzled over? Britain was the natural leader in industrialization, as the British people are entrepreneurs by nature. Even our capital, London, for the longest time has been a bustling center for trade with the continent and with Britain’s colonies. The industrial revolution simply further asserted our already established superiority. Our achievements became the envy of the European continent. It became the goal, the dream, of the European states to emulate our industrial revolution. Try as they might to surpass us, their people are proof of our unshakable lead in the textile industries. Their people purchase our textiles more willingly than they buy their native cloth. Why, even Napoleon’s troops wore British overcoats.