A coif ( / k ɔɪ f / ) is a close fitting cap worn by both men and women that covers the top, back, and sides of the head.
147-571: Coifs date from the 10th century, but fell out of popularity with men in the 14th century. Coifs were worn by all classes in England and Scotland from the Middle Ages to the early 17th century (and later as an old-fashioned cap for countrywomen and young children). Tudor (later Stewart in Scotland) and earlier coifs are usually made of unadorned white linen and tied under the chin. In
294-400: A better way could be found to remove the seed. Eli Whitney responded to the challenge by inventing the inexpensive cotton gin . A man using a cotton gin could remove seed from as much upland cotton in one day as would previously have taken two months to process, working at the rate of one pound of cotton per day. These advances were capitalised on by entrepreneurs , of whom the best known
441-518: A ceremonial county, or be a district tier within a shire county , be a royal or metropolitan borough , have borough or city status , or be a unitary authority . At the community level, much of England is divided into civil parishes with their own councils ; in Greater London only one such parish, Queen's Park , exists as of 2014 after they were abolished in 1965 until legislation allowed their recreation in 2007. From 1994 until
588-520: A cottage industry under the putting-out system . Occasionally, the work was done in the workshop of a master weaver. Under the putting-out system, home-based workers produced under contract to merchant sellers, who often supplied the raw materials. In the off-season, the women, typically farmers' wives, did the spinning and the men did the weaving. Using the spinning wheel , it took anywhere from four to eight spinners to supply one handloom weaver. The flying shuttle , patented in 1733 by John Kay —with
735-453: A geographical frame of reference. Of these, 38 developed gradually since the Middle Ages ; these were reformed to 51 in 1974 and to their current number in 1996. Each has a Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff ; these posts are used to represent the British monarch locally. Some counties, such as Herefordshire , are only divided further into civil parishes. The royal county of Berkshire and
882-670: A groundswell of enterprise and productivity transformed the economy in the 17th century, laying the foundations for the world's first industrial economy. Britain was already a nation of makers by the year 1700" and "the history of Britain needs to be rewritten". Eric Hobsbawm held that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830. Rapid adoption of mechanized textiles spinning occurred in Britain in
1029-425: A major turning point in history, comparable only to humanity's adoption of agriculture with respect to material advancement. The Industrial Revolution influenced in some way almost every aspect of daily life. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists have said the most important effect of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for
1176-421: A mechanised industry. Other inventors increased the efficiency of the individual steps of spinning (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling) so that the supply of yarn increased greatly. Steam power was then applied to drive textile machinery. Manchester acquired the nickname Cottonopolis during the early 19th century owing to its sprawl of textile factories. Although mechanisation dramatically decreased
1323-726: A more even thickness. The technology was developed with the help of John Wyatt of Birmingham . Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their rolling machine powered by a donkey. In 1743, a factory opened in Northampton with 50 spindles on each of five of Paul and Wyatt's machines. This operated until about 1764. A similar mill was built by Daniel Bourn in Leominster , but this burnt down. Both Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn patented carding machines in 1748. Based on two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds, it
1470-609: A new group of innovations in what has been called the Second Industrial Revolution . These included new steel-making processes , mass production , assembly lines , electrical grid systems, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories. The earliest recorded use of the term "Industrial Revolution" was in July 1799 by French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto , announcing that France had entered
1617-406: A number of subsequent improvements including an important one in 1747—doubled the output of a weaver, worsening the imbalance between spinning and weaving. It became widely used around Lancashire after 1760 when John's son, Robert , invented the dropbox, which facilitated changing thread colors. Lewis Paul patented the roller spinning frame and the flyer-and- bobbin system for drawing wool to
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#17327766189761764-660: A profound and permanent effect on the English language. Subsequently, the House of Plantagenet from Anjou inherited the English throne under Henry II , adding England to the budding Angevin Empire of fiefs the family had inherited in France including Aquitaine . They reigned for three centuries, some noted monarchs being Richard I , Edward I , Edward III and Henry V . The period saw changes in trade and legislation, including
1911-410: A reverberatory furnace, coal or coke could be used as fuel. The puddling process continued to be used until the late 19th century when iron was being displaced by mild steel. Because puddling required human skill in sensing the iron globs, it was never successfully mechanised. Rolling was an important part of the puddling process because the grooved rollers expelled most of the molten slag and consolidated
2058-438: A simple, wooden framed machine that only cost about £6 for a 40-spindle model in 1792 and was used mainly by home spinners. The jenny produced a lightly twisted yarn only suitable for weft, not warp. The spinning frame or water frame was developed by Richard Arkwright who, along with two partners, patented it in 1769. The design was partly based on a spinning machine built by Kay, who was hired by Arkwright. For each spindle
2205-450: A struggle for hegemony between Northumbria and Mercia, which in the 8th century gave way to Mercian preeminence. In the early 9th century Mercia was displaced as the foremost kingdom by Wessex. Later in that century escalating attacks by the Danes culminated in the conquest of the north and east of England, overthrowing the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex under Alfred
2352-625: A variety of cotton cloth, some of exceptionally fine quality. Cotton was a difficult raw material for Europe to obtain before it was grown on colonial plantations in the Americas. The early Spanish explorers found Native Americans growing unknown species of excellent quality cotton: sea island cotton ( Gossypium barbadense ) and upland green seeded cotton Gossypium hirsutum . Sea island cotton grew in tropical areas and on barrier islands of Georgia and South Carolina but did poorly inland. Sea island cotton began being exported from Barbados in
2499-493: A weight. The weights kept the twist from backing up before the rollers. The bottom rollers were wood and metal, with fluting along the length. The water frame was able to produce a hard, medium-count thread suitable for warp, finally allowing 100% cotton cloth to be made in Britain. Arkwright and his partners used water power at a factory in Cromford , Derbyshire in 1771, giving the invention its name. Samuel Crompton invented
2646-430: Is Arkwright. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were actually developed by such people as Kay and Thomas Highs ; Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power—first horsepower and then water power—which made cotton manufacture
2793-607: Is a non-departmental public body, established in 1995 and sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with responsibilities relating to the protection and enhancement of the environment in England. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the minister responsible for environmental protection, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in England. Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution , sometimes divided into
2940-412: Is also applied to England in a more poetic capacity, though its original meaning is the island of Britain as a whole. The earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor , dating to about 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago. Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during
3087-546: Is damp relatively frequently and is changeable. The coldest months are January and February, the latter particularly on the English coast , while July is normally the warmest month. Months with mild to warm weather are May, June, September and October. Rainfall is spread fairly evenly throughout the year. Important influences on the climate of England are its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean , its northern latitude and
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#17327766189763234-641: Is governed directly by the Parliament of the United Kingdom , although other countries of the United Kingdom have devolved governments. There has been debate about how to counterbalance this in England. Originally it was planned that various regions of England would be devolved, but following the proposal's rejection by the North East in a 2004 referendum , this has not been carried out. In 2024, an England-only intergovernmental body, known as
3381-669: Is high moorland in upland areas, indented by fertile valleys of the region's rivers. They contain two national parks , the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District . In the West Country , Dartmoor and Exmoor of the Southwest Peninsula include upland moorland supported by granite. The English Lowlands are in the central and southern regions of the country, consisting of green rolling hills, including
3528-780: Is known as the lost colony after it was found abandoned on the return of the late-arriving supply ship. With the East India Company , England also competed with the Dutch and French in the East. During the Elizabethan period, England was at war with Spain. An armada sailed from Spain in 1588 as part of a wider plan to invade England and re-establish a Catholic monarchy. The plan was thwarted by bad coordination, stormy weather and successful harrying attacks by an English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham . This failure did not end
3675-623: Is mostly found in the north and west, including Dartmoor , the Lake District , the Pennines , and the Shropshire Hills . The country's capital is London , the metropolitan area of which has a population of 14.2 million as of 2021, representing the United Kingdom's largest metropolitan area. England's population of 56.3 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London,
3822-562: Is part of the United Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system . There has not been a government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707 , putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union , joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain . Before the union England was ruled by its monarch and the Parliament of England . Today England
3969-472: Is similar to that of other areas in the British Isles with a wide range of vertebrate and invertebrate life in a diverse range of habitats. National nature reserves in England are designated by Natural England as key places for wildlife and natural features in England. They were established to protect the most significant areas of habitat and of geological formations. NNRs are managed on behalf of
4116-519: The 1535–1542 acts . There were internal religious conflicts during the reigns of Henry's daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I . The former took the country back to Catholicism while the latter broke from it again, forcefully asserting the supremacy of Anglicanism . The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor age of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I ("the Virgin Queen"). Historians often depict it as
4263-643: The Age of Discovery . Henry VIII broke from communion with the Catholic Church, over issues relating to his divorce, under the Acts of Supremacy in 1534 which proclaimed the monarch head of the Church of England . In contrast with much of European Protestantism , the roots of the split were more political than theological. He also legally incorporated his ancestral land Wales into the Kingdom of England with
4410-583: The Angeln region of what is now the German state of Schleswig-Holstein . The earliest recorded use of the term, as " Engla londe ", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede 's Ecclesiastical History of the English People . The term was then used to mean "the land inhabited by the English", and it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was then part of
4557-590: The Battle of Trafalgar confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century. The Napoleonic Wars fostered a concept of Britishness and a united national British people , shared with the English, Scots and Welsh. London became the largest and most populous metropolitan area in the world during the Victorian era , and trade within the British Empire – as well as
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4704-536: The Battle of Watling Street . The author of one study of Roman Britain suggested that from 43 AD to 84 AD, the Roman invaders killed somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000 people from a population of perhaps 2,000,000. This era saw a Greco-Roman culture prevail with the introduction of Roman law , Roman architecture , aqueducts , sewers , many agricultural items and silk. In the 3rd century, Emperor Septimius Severus died at Eboracum (now York ), where Constantine
4851-593: The British Agricultural Revolution , to provide excess manpower and food; a pool of managerial and entrepreneurial skills; available ports, rivers, canals, and roads to cheaply move raw materials and outputs; natural resources such as coal, iron, and waterfalls; political stability and a legal system that supported business; and financial capital available to invest. Once industrialisation began in Great Britain, new factors can be added:
4998-676: The British Isles , but also from the Commonwealth , particularly the Indian subcontinent . Since the 1970s there has been a large move away from manufacturing and an increasing emphasis on the service industry . As part of the United Kingdom, the area joined a common market initiative called the European Economic Community which became the European Union . Since the late 20th century the administration of
5145-610: The Cotswold Hills , Chiltern Hills , North and South Downs ; where they meet the sea they form white rock exposures such as the cliffs of Dover . This also includes relatively flat plains such as the Salisbury Plain , Somerset Levels , South Coast Plain and The Fens . England has a temperate maritime climate : it is mild with temperatures not much lower than 0 °C (32 °F) in winter and not much higher than 32 °C (90 °F) in summer. The weather
5292-690: The Court of Appeal , the High Court of Justice for civil cases, and the Crown Court for criminal cases. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest court for criminal and civil cases in England and Wales . It was created in 2009 after constitutional changes, taking over the judicial functions of the House of Lords . A decision of the Supreme Court is binding on every other court in
5439-583: The Courts of England and Wales continued, under the Treaty of Union , as a separate legal system from the one used in Scotland . The general essence of English law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent – stare decisis – to the facts before them. The court system is headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of
5586-571: The East India Company . The development of trade and the rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution. Developments in law also facilitated the revolution, such as courts ruling in favour of property rights . An entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution helped drive industrialisation in Britain, which after 1800, was emulated in Belgium, the United States, and France. The Industrial Revolution marked
5733-583: The Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras , coifs were frequently decorated with blackwork embroidery and lace edging. Coifs were worn under gable hoods and hats of all sorts, and alone as indoor headcoverings. Coifs were also worn by a now-defunct senior grade of English lawyer, the Serjeant-at-Law even after they became judges. A United States law school honor society is called the Order of
5880-810: The First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution , was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution . Beginning in Great Britain , the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States , from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines ; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes;
6027-736: The French Revolution , under George III and William Pitt the Younger . The regency of George IV is noted for its elegance and achievements in the fine arts and architecture. During the Napoleonic Wars , Napoleon planned to invade from the south-east ; however, this failed to manifest and the Napoleonic forces were defeated by the British: at sea by Horatio Nelson , and on land by Arthur Wellesley . The major victory at
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6174-487: The Kingdom of Great Britain . England is the origin of the English language , the English legal system (which served as the basis for the common law systems of many other countries), association football , and the Anglican branch of Christianity; its parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into
6321-672: The Labour Party , 116 from the Conservative Party , 65 from the Liberal Democrats , five for Reform UK and four for the Green Party of England and Wales . The English law legal system, developed over the centuries, is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States (except Louisiana ). Despite now being part of the United Kingdom, the legal system of
6468-556: The Latin word Anglii is used. The etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars; it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe that was less significant than others, such as the Saxons , came to be used for the entire country is not known, but it seems this is related to
6615-722: The Mayoral Council for England , was established to bring together ministers from the UK Government , the Mayor of London and the leaders of combined authorities . In the House of Commons which is the lower house of the British Parliament based at the Palace of Westminster , there are 543 members of parliament (MPs) for constituencies in England, out of the 650 total. England is represented by 347 MPs from
6762-546: The Ministry of Justice , manages most prisons, housing 81,309 prisoners in England and Wales as of September 2022 . The subdivisions of England consist of up to four levels of subnational division , controlled through a variety of types of administrative entities created for the purposes of local government . Outside the London region, England's highest tier is the 48 ceremonial counties . These are used primarily as
6909-687: The Severn is the longest river flowing through England. It empties into the Bristol Channel and is notable for its Severn Bore (a tidal bore ), which can reach 2 metres (6.6 ft) in height. However, the longest river entirely in England is the Thames, which is 215 miles (346 km) in length. There are many lakes in England ; the largest is Windermere , within the aptly named Lake District . Most of England's landscape consists of low hills and plains, with upland and mountainous terrain in
7056-416: The South East , and conurbations in the Midlands , the North West , the North East , and Yorkshire , which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century. The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland , which means "land of the Angles ". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages . They came from
7203-479: The State Opening of Parliament by the British monarch when the doors of the House of Commons are slammed in the face of the monarch's messenger, symbolising the rights of Parliament and its independence from the monarch. With the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, science was greatly encouraged. In 1666 the Great Fire of London gutted the city of London, but it was rebuilt shortly afterward with many significant buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren . By
7350-451: The Stuart dynasty England expanded in trade, finance and prosperity. The Royal Navy developed Europe's largest merchant fleet. After the parliaments of England and Scotland agreed, the two countries joined in political union , to create the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. To accommodate the union, institutions such as the law and national churches of each remained separate. Under the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from
7497-433: The Trinovantes . The Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD during the reign of Emperor Claudius , subsequently conquering much of Britain , and the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire as Britannia province . The best-known of the native tribes who attempted to resist were the Catuvellauni led by Caratacus . Later, an uprising led by Boudica , Queen of the Iceni , ended with Boudica's suicide following her defeat at
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#17327766189767644-412: The United Kingdom (green) England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom . It is located on the island of Great Britain , of which it covers about 62%, and more than 100 smaller adjacent islands . It has land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, and is otherwise surrounded by the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south, the Celtic Sea to
7791-419: The Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years. After the last ice age only large mammals such as mammoths , bison and woolly rhinoceros remained. Roughly 11,000 years ago, when the ice sheets began to recede, humans repopulated the area; genetic research suggests they came from the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula . The sea level
7938-470: The canal age in Britain . In 1825 the world's first permanent steam locomotive-hauled passenger railway – the Stockton and Darlington Railway – opened to the public. During the Industrial Revolution , many workers moved from England's countryside to new and expanding urban industrial areas to work in factories, for instance at Birmingham and Manchester , with the latter the world's first industrial city. England maintained relative stability throughout
8085-435: The decline of the Roman Empire , Britain was left exposed by the end of Roman rule in Britain and the withdrawal of Roman army units, to defend the frontiers in continental Europe and partake in civil wars. Celtic Christian monastic and missionary movements flourished. This period of Christianity was influenced by ancient Celtic culture in its sensibilities, polity, practices and theology. Local "congregations" were centred in
8232-434: The golden age in English history that represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of great art, drama, poetry, music and literature. England during this period had a centralised, well-organised, and effective government. Competing with Spain , the first English colony in the Americas was founded in 1585 by explorer Walter Raleigh in Virginia and named Roanoke . The Roanoke colony failed and
8379-473: The jet engine led to wider air travel . Residential patterns were altered in England by private motoring, and by the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, providing publicly funded health care to all permanent residents free at the point of need. Combined, these prompted the reform of local government in England in the mid-20th century. Since the 20th century, there has been significant population movement to England, mostly from other parts of
8526-488: The spinning mule in 1779, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright's water frame and James Hargreaves 's spinning jenny in the same way that a mule is the product of crossbreeding a female horse with a male donkey . Crompton's mule was able to produce finer thread than hand spinning and at a lower cost. Mule-spun thread was of suitable strength to be used as a warp and finally allowed Britain to produce highly competitive yarn in large quantities. Realising that
8673-410: The technological and architectural innovations were of British origin. By the mid-18th century, Britain was the world's leading commercial nation, controlling a global trading empire with colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Britain had major military and political hegemony on the Indian subcontinent ; particularly with the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal , through the activities of
8820-441: The 1650s. Upland green seeded cotton grew well on inland areas of the southern U.S. but was not economical because of the difficulty of removing seed, a problem solved by the cotton gin . A strain of cotton seed brought from Mexico to Natchez, Mississippi , in 1806 became the parent genetic material for over 90% of world cotton production today; it produced bolls that were three to four times faster to pick. The Age of Discovery
8967-400: The 1780s, and high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurred after 1800. Mechanised textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France. An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to
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#17327766189769114-426: The 32 London Boroughs and the 25 Wards of the City of London . Geographically, England includes the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus such offshore islands as the Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly . It is bordered by two other countries of the United Kingdom: to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. England is closer than any other part of mainland Britain to
9261-435: The 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had extensive cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery , which began during the 15th century. The Kingdom of England , which included Wales after 1535, ceased to be a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union brought into effect a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland that created
9408-516: The 6th century. Contemporary texts describing this period are extremely scarce, giving rise to its description as a Dark Age . Details of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain are consequently subject to considerable disagreement; the emerging consensus is that it occurred on a large scale in the south and east but was less substantial to the north and west, where Celtic languages continued to be spoken even in areas under Anglo-Saxon control. Roman-dominated Christianity had, in general, been replaced in
9555-521: The Coif . The traditional religious habit of Catholic nuns and Religious Sisters includes a coif as a headpiece, along with the white cotton cap secured by a bandeau , to which the veil is attached, along with a white wimple or guimpe of starched linen or cotton to cover the cheeks, neck and chest. A mail coif was a type of armour , made of mail , which covered the head (face excluded), neck and shoulders. England – in Europe (green & dark grey) – in
9702-448: The English kingdom of Northumbria . The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years later the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus , Germania , in which
9849-416: The European continent. It is separated from France ( Hauts-de-France ) by a 21-mile (34 km) sea gap, though the two countries are connected by the Channel Tunnel near Folkestone . England also has shores on the Irish Sea , North Sea and Atlantic Ocean. The ports of London, Liverpool , and Newcastle lie on the tidal rivers Thames , Mersey and Tyne respectively. At 220 miles (350 km),
9996-403: The Great was left as the only surviving English kingdom, and under his successors, it steadily expanded at the expense of the kingdoms of the Danelaw . This brought about the political unification of England, first accomplished under Æthelstan in 927 and definitively established after further conflicts by Eadred in 953. A fresh wave of Scandinavian attacks from the late 10th century ended with
10143-443: The Indian industry. Bar iron was the commodity form of iron used as the raw material for making hardware goods such as nails, wire, hinges, horseshoes, wagon tires, chains, etc., as well as structural shapes. A small amount of bar iron was converted into steel. Cast iron was used for pots, stoves, and other items where its brittleness was tolerable. Most cast iron was refined and converted to bar iron, with substantial losses. Bar iron
10290-414: The Industrial Revolution, thus causing the Great Divergence . Some historians, such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts , have argued that the economic and social changes occurred gradually and that the term revolution is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among some historians. Six factors facilitated industrialisation: high levels of agricultural productivity, such as that reflected in
10437-439: The North, and the successful Norman Conquest in October 1066, accomplished by an army led by Duke William of Normandy invading at Hastings late September 1066. The Normans themselves originated from Scandinavia and had settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. This conquest led to the almost total dispossession of the English elite and its replacement by a new French-speaking aristocracy, whose speech had
10584-682: The Pope. During the 14th century, the Plantagenets and the House of Valois claimed to be legitimate claimants to the House of Capet and of France; the two powers clashed in the Hundred Years' War . The Black Death epidemic hit England ; starting in 1348, it eventually killed up to half of England's inhabitants . Between 1453 and 1487, a civil war known as the War of the Roses waged between
10731-1015: The Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering, while the enormous growth in British overseas trade protected by the Royal Navy paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire . Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution , a period of profound change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of England, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development. The opening of Northwest England's Bridgewater Canal in 1761 ushered in
10878-577: The Scottish inventor James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, was the most important development of the 19th century for saving energy in making pig iron. By using preheated combustion air, the amount of fuel to make a unit of pig iron was reduced at first by between one-third using coke or two-thirds using coal; the efficiency gains continued as the technology improved. Hot blast also raised the operating temperature of furnaces, increasing their capacity. Using less coal or coke meant introducing fewer impurities into
11025-432: The United Kingdom has moved towards devolved governance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales continues to exist as a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. Devolution has stimulated a greater emphasis on a more English-specific identity and patriotism. There is no devolved English government, but an attempt to create a similar system on a sub-regional basis was rejected by referendum . England
11172-607: The United Kingdom as part of the Allies . Two decades later, in World War II , the United Kingdom was again one of the Allies . Developments in warfare technology saw many cities damaged by air-raids during the Blitz . Following the war, the British Empire experienced rapid decolonisation , and there was a speeding-up of technological innovations; automobiles became the primary means of transport and Frank Whittle 's development of
11319-556: The Western European models in the late 19th century. The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, beginning in the second half of the 18th century. By the 1830s, the following gains had been made in important technologies: In 1750, Britain imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton, most of which was spun and woven by the cottage industry in Lancashire . The work
11466-577: The area, the Beaker culture people made bronze , and later iron from iron ores. The development of iron smelting allowed the construction of better ploughs , advancing agriculture (for instance, with Celtic fields ), as well as the production of more effective weapons. During the Iron Age , Celtic culture , deriving from the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures , arrived from Central Europe. Brythonic
11613-767: The auspices of James VI and I the Authorised King James Version of the Holy Bible was published in 1611. It was the standard version of the Bible read by most Protestant Christians for four hundred years until modern revisions were produced in the 20th century. Based on conflicting political, religious and social positions, the English Civil War was fought between the supporters of Parliament and those of King Charles I , known colloquially as Roundheads and Cavaliers respectively. This
11760-471: The coal do not migrate into the metal. This technology was applied to lead from 1678 and to copper from 1687. It was also applied to iron foundry work in the 1690s, but in this case the reverberatory furnace was known as an air furnace. (The foundry cupola is a different, and later, innovation.) Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce wrought iron until 1755–56, when Darby's son Abraham Darby II built furnaces at Horsehay and Ketley where low sulfur coal
11907-409: The coke pig iron he made was not suitable for making wrought iron and was used mostly for the production of cast iron goods, such as pots and kettles. He had the advantage over his rivals in that his pots, cast by his patented process, were thinner and cheaper than theirs. In 1750, coke had generally replaced charcoal in the smelting of copper and lead and was in widespread use in glass production. In
12054-467: The column of materials (iron ore, fuel, slag) flowing down the blast furnace more porous and did not crush in the much taller furnaces of the late 19th century. As cast iron became cheaper and widely available, it began being a structural material for bridges and buildings. A famous early example is the Iron Bridge built in 1778 with cast iron produced by Abraham Darby III. However, most cast iron
12201-585: The conquered territories by Anglo-Saxon paganism , but was reintroduced by missionaries from Rome led by Augustine from 597. Disputes between the Roman- and Celtic-dominated forms of Christianity ended in victory for the Roman tradition at the Council of Whitby (664), which was ostensibly about tonsures (clerical haircuts) and the date of Easter, but more significantly, about the differences in Roman and Celtic forms of authority, theology, and practice. During
12348-541: The conquest of this united kingdom by Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and again by his son Cnut in 1016, turning it into the centre of a short-lived North Sea Empire that also included Denmark and Norway . However, the native royal dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor in 1042. A dispute over the succession to Edward led to an unsuccessful Norwegian Invasion in September 1066 close to York in
12495-495: The cost of cotton cloth, by the mid-19th century machine-woven cloth still could not equal the quality of hand-woven Indian cloth, in part because of the fineness of thread made possible by the type of cotton used in India, which allowed high thread counts. However, the high productivity of British textile manufacturing allowed coarser grades of British cloth to undersell hand-spun and woven fabric in low-wage India, eventually destroying
12642-542: The cotton textile industry in Britain was 2.6% in 1760, 17% in 1801, and 22.4% in 1831. Value added by the British woollen industry was 14.1% in 1801. Cotton factories in Britain numbered approximately 900 in 1797. In 1760, approximately one-third of cotton cloth manufactured in Britain was exported, rising to two-thirds by 1800. In 1781, cotton spun amounted to 5.1 million pounds, which increased to 56 million pounds by 1800. In 1800, less than 0.1% of world cotton cloth
12789-427: The country. Steam engines made the use of higher-pressure and volume blast practical; however, the leather used in bellows was expensive to replace. In 1757, ironmaster John Wilkinson patented a hydraulic powered blowing engine for blast furnaces. The blowing cylinder for blast furnaces was introduced in 1760 and the first blowing cylinder made of cast iron is believed to be the one used at Carrington in 1768 that
12936-454: The course of the fifth and sixth centuries, initially in the eastern part of the country. Their advance was contained for some decades after the Britons' victory at the Battle of Mount Badon , but subsequently resumed, overrunning the fertile lowlands of Britain and reducing the area under Brittonic control to a series of separate enclaves in the more rugged country to the west by the end of
13083-883: The custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons (Eald-Seaxe) of Old Saxony in Germany. In Scottish Gaelic , the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England ( Sasunn ); similarly, the Welsh name for the English language is Saesneg . A romantic name for England is Loegria , related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr , and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend . Albion
13230-403: The eagerness of British entrepreneurs to export industrial expertise and the willingness to import the process. Britain met the criteria and industrialized starting in the 18th century, and then it exported the process to western Europe (especially Belgium, France, and the German states) in the early 19th century. The United States copied the British model in the early 19th century, and Japan copied
13377-543: The early 1840s when the adoption of the Industrial Revolution's early innovations, such as mechanised spinning and weaving, slowed as their markets matured; and despite the increasing adoption of locomotives, steamboats and steamships, and hot blast iron smelting . New technologies such as the electrical telegraph , widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s in the United Kingdom and the United States, were not powerful enough to drive high rates of economic growth. Rapid economic growth began to reoccur after 1870, springing from
13524-637: The early 2010s England was divided for a few purposes into regions; a 1998 referendum for the London Region created the London Assembly two years later. A failed 2004 North East England devolution referendum cancelled further regional assembly devolution with the regional structure outside London abolished. Ceremonially and administratively, the region is divided between the City of London and Greater London ; these are further divided into
13671-465: The expiration of the Arkwright patent would greatly increase the supply of spun cotton and lead to a shortage of weavers, Edmund Cartwright developed a vertical power loom which he patented in 1785. In 1776, he patented a two-man operated loom. Cartwright's loom design had several flaws, the most serious being thread breakage. Samuel Horrocks patented a fairly successful loom in 1813. Horock's loom
13818-528: The first highly mechanised factory was John Lombe 's water-powered silk mill at Derby , operational by 1721. Lombe learned silk thread manufacturing by taking a job in Italy and acting as an industrial spy; however, because the Italian silk industry guarded its secrets closely, the state of the industry at that time is unknown. Although Lombe's factory was technically successful, the supply of raw silk from Italy
13965-400: The first successful cylinder for a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1776, he was given an exclusive contract for providing cylinders. After Watt developed a rotary steam engine in 1782, they were widely applied to blowing, hammering, rolling and slitting. The solutions to the sulfur problem were the addition of sufficient limestone to the furnace to force sulfur into the slag as well as
14112-534: The general population in the Western world began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to improve meaningfully until the late 19th and 20th centuries. GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies. Economic historians agree that
14259-538: The hierarchy, which must follow its directions. The Secretary of State for Justice is the minister responsible to Parliament for the judiciary , the court system and prisons and probation in England. Crime increased between 1981 and 1995 but fell by 42% in the period 1995–2006. The prison population doubled over the same period, giving it one of the highest incarceration rates in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000. His Majesty's Prison Service , reporting to
14406-451: The increasing use of water power and steam power ; the development of machine tools ; and the rise of the mechanised factory system . Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth . The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested. Many of
14553-517: The iron industries during the Industrial Revolution was the replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal ; for a given amount of heat, mining coal required much less labour than cutting wood and converting it to charcoal , and coal was much more abundant than wood, supplies of which were becoming scarce before the enormous increase in iron production that took place in the late 18th century. In 1709, Abraham Darby made progress using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale . However,
14700-496: The late 19th century, and his expression did not enter everyday language until then. Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee , whose 1881 lectures gave a detailed account of the term. Economic historians and authors such as Mendels, Pomeranz , and Kridte argue that proto-industrialisation in parts of Europe, the Muslim world , Mughal India , and China created the social and economic conditions that led to
14847-467: The mass of hot wrought iron. Rolling was 15 times faster at this than a trip hammer . A different use of rolling, which was done at lower temperatures than that for expelling slag, was in the production of iron sheets, and later structural shapes such as beams, angles, and rails. The puddling process was improved in 1818 by Baldwyn Rogers, who replaced some of the sand lining on the reverberatory furnace bottom with iron oxide . In 1838 John Hall patented
14994-453: The metropolitan counties have different types of status to other ceremonial counties. The second tier is made up of combined authorities and the 27 county-tier shire counties . In 1974, all ceremonial counties were two-tier; and with the metropolitan county tier phased out, the 1996 reform separated the ceremonial county and the administrative county tier. England is also divided into local government districts. The district can align to
15141-707: The mid-to-late 17th century, two political factions had emerged – the Tories and Whigs . Though the Tories initially supported Catholic king James II , some of them, along with the Whigs, during the Revolution of 1688 invited the Dutch Prince William of Orange to defeat James and become the king. Some English people, especially in the north, were Jacobites and continued to support James and his sons. Under
15288-569: The monastic community and monastic leaders were more like chieftains, as peers, rather than in the more hierarchical system of the Roman-dominated church. Roman military withdrawals left Britain open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors from north-western continental Europe, chiefly the Saxons, Angles , Jutes and Frisians who had long raided the coasts of the Roman province. These groups then began to settle in increasing numbers over
15435-611: The nation, many by Natural England themselves, but also by non-governmental organisations, including the members of The Wildlife Trusts partnership, the National Trust , and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds . There are 221 NNRs in England covering 110,000 hectares (1,100 square kilometres). Often they contain rare species or nationally important populations of plants and animals. . The Environment Agency
15582-613: The north and west of the country. The northern uplands include the Pennines , a chain of uplands dividing east and west, the Lake District mountains in Cumbria, and the Cheviot Hills , straddling the border between England and Scotland. The highest point in England, at 978 metres (3,209 ft), is Scafell Pike in the Lake District. The Shropshire Hills are near Wales while Dartmoor and Exmoor are two upland areas in
15729-480: The number of cotton goods consumed in Western Europe was minor until the early 19th century. By 1600, Flemish refugees began weaving cotton cloth in English towns where cottage spinning and weaving of wool and linen was well established. They were left alone by the guilds who did not consider cotton a threat. Earlier European attempts at cotton spinning and weaving were in 12th-century Italy and 15th-century southern Germany, but these industries eventually ended when
15876-418: The onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in human history since the domestication of animals and plants. The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes . According to Cambridge historian Leigh Shaw-Taylor, Britain was already industrialising in the 17th century, and "Our database shows that
16023-501: The race to industrialise. In his 1976 book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society , Raymond Williams states in the entry for "Industry": "The idea of a new social order based on major industrial change was clear in Southey and Owen , between 1811 and 1818, and was implicit as early as Blake in the early 1790s and Wordsworth at the turn of the [19th] century." The term Industrial Revolution applied to technological change
16170-450: The settlement period the lands ruled by the incomers seem to have been fragmented into numerous tribal territories, but by the 7th century, when substantial evidence of the situation again becomes available, these had coalesced into roughly a dozen kingdoms including Northumbria , Mercia , Wessex , East Anglia , Essex , Kent and Sussex . Over the following centuries, this process of political consolidation continued. The 7th century saw
16317-477: The signing of Magna Carta , an English legal charter used to limit the sovereign's powers by law and protect the privileges of freemen. Catholic monasticism flourished, providing philosophers, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded with royal patronage. The Principality of Wales became a Plantagenet fief during the 13th century and the Lordship of Ireland was given to the English monarchy by
16464-418: The slag from almost 50% to around 8%. Puddling became widely used after 1800. Up to that time, British iron manufacturers had used considerable amounts of iron imported from Sweden and Russia to supplement domestic supplies. Because of the increased British production, imports began to decline in 1785, and by the 1790s Britain eliminated imports and became a net exporter of bar iron. Hot blast , patented by
16611-457: The smelting and refining of iron, coal and coke produced inferior iron to that made with charcoal because of the coal's sulfur content. Low sulfur coals were known, but they still contained harmful amounts. Conversion of coal to coke only slightly reduces the sulfur content. A minority of coals are coking. Another factor limiting the iron industry before the Industrial Revolution was the scarcity of water power to power blast bellows. This limitation
16758-636: The south-west of the country. The approximate dividing line between terrain types is often indicated by the Tees–Exe line . The Pennines, known as the "backbone of England", are the oldest range of mountains in the country, originating from the end of the Paleozoic Era around 300 million years ago. Their geological composition includes, among others, sandstone and limestone , and also coal. There are karst landscapes in calcite areas such as parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire . The Pennine landscape
16905-578: The south-west, and the Irish Sea to the west. Continental Europe lies to the south-east, and Ireland to the west. At the 2021 census , the population was 56,490,048. London is both the largest city and the capital . The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic . It takes its name from the Angles , a Germanic tribe who settled during
17052-492: The standing of the British military and navy – was prestigious. Technologically, this era saw many innovations that proved key to the United Kingdom's power and prosperity. Political agitation at home from radicals such as the Chartists and the suffragettes enabled legislative reform and universal suffrage . Power shifts in east-central Europe led to World War I; hundreds of thousands of English soldiers died fighting for
17199-528: The supply of cotton was cut off. The Moors in Spain grew, spun, and wove cotton beginning around the 10th century. British cloth could not compete with Indian cloth because India's labour cost was approximately one-fifth to one-sixth that of Britain's. In 1700 and 1721, the British government passed Calico Acts to protect the domestic woollen and linen industries from the increasing amounts of cotton fabric imported from India. The demand for heavier fabric
17346-491: The threat: Spain launched two further armadas, in 1596 and 1597 , but both were driven back by storms. The political structure of the island changed in 1603, when the King of Scots , James VI , a kingdom which had been a long-time rival to English interests, inherited the throne of England as James I, thereby creating a personal union . He styled himself King of Great Britain , although this had no basis in English law. Under
17493-803: The two branches of the royal family, the Yorkists and Lancastrians . Eventually it led to the Yorkists losing the throne entirely to a Welsh noble family the Tudors , a branch of the Lancastrians headed by Henry Tudor who invaded with Welsh and Breton mercenaries, gaining victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field where the Yorkist king Richard III was killed. During the Tudor period , England began to develop naval skills , and exploration intensified in
17640-415: The use of low sulfur coal. The use of lime or limestone required higher furnace temperatures to form a free-flowing slag. The increased furnace temperature made possible by improved blowing also increased the capacity of blast furnaces and allowed for increased furnace height. In addition to lower cost and greater availability, coke had other important advantages over charcoal in that it was harder and made
17787-406: The use of roasted tap cinder ( iron silicate ) for the furnace bottom, greatly reducing the loss of iron through increased slag caused by a sand lined bottom. The tap cinder also tied up some phosphorus, but this was not understood at the time. Hall's process also used iron scale or rust which reacted with carbon in the molten iron. Hall's process, called wet puddling , reduced losses of iron with
17934-541: The warming of the sea by the Gulf Stream . Rainfall is higher in the west, and parts of the Lake District receive more rain than anywhere else in the country. Since weather records began, the highest temperature recorded was 40.3 °C (104.5 °F) on 19 July 2022 at Coningsby , Lincolnshire , while the lowest was −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F) on 10 January 1982 in Edgmond , Shropshire. The fauna of England
18081-410: The water frame used a series of four pairs of rollers, each operating at a successively higher rotating speed, to draw out the fibre which was then twisted by the spindle. The roller spacing was slightly longer than the fibre length. Too close a spacing caused the fibres to break while too distant a spacing caused uneven thread. The top rollers were leather-covered and loading on the rollers was applied by
18228-550: The world's first industrialised nation. England is home to the two oldest universities in the English-speaking world: the University of Oxford , founded in 1096, and the University of Cambridge , founded in 1209. Both universities are ranked among the most prestigious in the world. England's terrain chiefly consists of low hills and plains , especially in the centre and south . Upland and mountainous terrain
18375-505: Was 7,800 tons and coke cast iron was 250,000 tons. In 1750, the UK imported 31,200 tons of bar iron and either refined from cast iron or directly produced 18,800 tons of bar iron using charcoal and 100 tons using coke. In 1796, the UK was making 125,000 tons of bar iron with coke and 6,400 tons with charcoal; imports were 38,000 tons and exports were 24,600 tons. In 1806 the UK did not import bar iron but exported 31,500 tons. A major change in
18522-407: Was a means of decarburizing molten pig iron by slow oxidation in a reverberatory furnace by manually stirring it with a long rod. The decarburized iron, having a higher melting point than cast iron, was raked into globs by the puddler. When the glob was large enough, the puddler would remove it. Puddling was backbreaking and extremely hot work. Few puddlers lived to be 40. Because puddling was done in
18669-576: Was an interwoven part of the wider multifaceted Wars of the Three Kingdoms , involving Scotland and Ireland . The Parliamentarians were victorious, Charles I was executed and the kingdom replaced by the Commonwealth . Leader of the Parliament forces, Oliver Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector in 1653; a period of personal rule followed. After Cromwell's death and the resignation of his son Richard as Lord Protector, Charles II
18816-606: Was available (and not far from Coalbrookdale). These furnaces were equipped with water-powered bellows, the water being pumped by Newcomen steam engines . The Newcomen engines were not attached directly to the blowing cylinders because the engines alone could not produce a steady air blast. Abraham Darby III installed similar steam-pumped, water-powered blowing cylinders at the Dale Company when he took control in 1768. The Dale Company used several Newcomen engines to drain its mines and made parts for engines which it sold throughout
18963-608: Was becoming more common by the late 1830s, as in Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui 's description in 1837 of la révolution industrielle . Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of "an industrial revolution, a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society". Although Engels wrote his book in the 1840s, it was not translated into English until
19110-414: Was converted to wrought iron. Conversion of cast iron had long been done in a finery forge . An improved refining process known as potting and stamping was developed, but this was superseded by Henry Cort 's puddling process. Cort developed two significant iron manufacturing processes: rolling in 1783 and puddling in 1784. Puddling produced a structural grade iron at a relatively low cost. Puddling
19257-566: Was cut off to eliminate competition. In order to promote manufacturing, the Crown paid for models of Lombe's machinery which were exhibited in the Tower of London . Parts of India, China, Central America, South America, and the Middle East have a long history of hand manufacturing cotton textiles, which became a major industry sometime after 1000 AD. In tropical and subtropical regions where it
19404-403: Was designed by John Smeaton . Cast iron cylinders for use with a piston were difficult to manufacture; the cylinders had to be free of holes and had to be machined smooth and straight to remove any warping. James Watt had great difficulty trying to have a cylinder made for his first steam engine. In 1774 Wilkinson invented a precision boring machine for boring cylinders. After Wilkinson bored
19551-559: Was done by hand in workers' homes or occasionally in master weavers' shops. Wages in Lancashire were about six times those in India in 1770 when overall productivity in Britain was about three times higher than in India. In 1787, raw cotton consumption was 22 million pounds, most of which was cleaned, carded, and spun on machines. The British textile industry used 52 million pounds of cotton in 1800, which increased to 588 million pounds in 1850. The share of value added by
19698-502: Was established with the Bill of Rights in 1689. Among the statutes set down were that the law could only be made by Parliament and could not be suspended by the King, also that the King could not impose taxes or raise an army without the prior approval of Parliament. Also since that time, no British monarch has entered the House of Commons when it is sitting, which is annually commemorated at
19845-544: Was followed by a period of colonialism beginning around the 16th century. Following the discovery of a trade route to India around southern Africa by the Portuguese, the British founded the East India Company , along with smaller companies of different nationalities which established trading posts and employed agents to engage in trade throughout the Indian Ocean region. One of the largest segments of this trade
19992-569: Was grown, most was grown by small farmers alongside their food crops and was spun and woven in households, largely for domestic consumption. In the 15th century, China began to require households to pay part of their taxes in cotton cloth. By the 17th century, almost all Chinese wore cotton clothing. Almost everywhere cotton cloth could be used as a medium of exchange . In India, a significant amount of cotton textiles were manufactured for distant markets, often produced by professional weavers. Some merchants also owned small weaving workshops. India produced
20139-479: Was improved by Richard Roberts in 1822, and these were produced in large numbers by Roberts, Hill & Co. Roberts was additionally a maker of high-quality machine tools and a pioneer in the use of jigs and gauges for precision workshop measurement. The demand for cotton presented an opportunity to planters in the Southern United States, who thought upland cotton would be a profitable crop if
20286-660: Was in cotton textiles, which were purchased in India and sold in Southeast Asia , including the Indonesian archipelago where spices were purchased for sale to Southeast Asia and Europe. By the mid-1760s, cloth was over three-quarters of the East India Company's exports. Indian textiles were in demand in the North Atlantic region of Europe where previously only wool and linen were available; however,
20433-399: Was invited to return as monarch in 1660, in a move called the Restoration . With the reopening of theatres, fine arts, literature and performing arts flourished throughout the Restoration of the "Merry Monarch" Charles II. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it was constitutionally established that King and Parliament should rule together, though Parliament would have the real power. This
20580-400: Was later used in the first cotton spinning mill . In 1764, in the village of Stanhill, Lancashire, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny , which he patented in 1770. It was the first practical spinning frame with multiple spindles. The jenny worked in a similar manner to the spinning wheel, by first clamping down on the fibres, then by drawing them out, followed by twisting. It was
20727-572: Was lower than the present day and Britain was connected by land bridge to Ireland and Eurasia . As the seas rose, it was separated from Ireland 10,000 years ago and from Eurasia two millennia later. The Beaker culture arrived around 2,500 BC, introducing drinking and food vessels constructed from clay, as well as vessels used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores. It was during this time that major Neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge (phase III) and Avebury were constructed. By heating together tin and copper, which were in abundance in
20874-437: Was made by the bloomery process, which was the predominant iron smelting process until the late 18th century. In the UK in 1720, there were 20,500 tons of cast iron produced with charcoal and 400 tons with coke. In 1750 charcoal iron production was 24,500 and coke iron was 2,500 tons. In 1788, the production of charcoal cast iron was 14,000 tons while coke iron production was 54,000 tons. In 1806, charcoal cast iron production
21021-419: Was met by a domestic industry based around Lancashire that produced fustian , a cloth with flax warp and cotton weft . Flax was used for the warp because wheel-spun cotton did not have sufficient strength, but the resulting blend was not as soft as 100% cotton and was more difficult to sew. On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, spinning and weaving were done in households, for domestic consumption, and as
21168-413: Was overcome by the steam engine. Use of coal in iron smelting started somewhat before the Industrial Revolution, based on innovations by Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coal reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas. These were operated by the flames playing on the ore and charcoal or coke mixture, reducing the oxide to metal. This has the advantage that impurities (such as sulphur ash) in
21315-425: Was produced on machinery invented in Britain. In 1788, there were 50,000 spindles in Britain, rising to 7 million over the next 30 years. The earliest European attempts at mechanised spinning were with wool; however, wool spinning proved more difficult to mechanise than cotton. Productivity improvement in wool spinning during the Industrial Revolution was significant but far less than that of cotton. Arguably
21462-568: Was subsequently proclaimed emperor a century later. There is debate about when Christianity was first introduced; it was no later than the 4th century, probably much earlier. According to Bede , missionaries were sent from Rome by Eleutherius at the request of the chieftain Lucius of Britain in 180 AD, to settle differences as to Eastern and Western ceremonials, which were disturbing the church. There are traditions linked to Glastonbury claiming an introduction through Joseph of Arimathea , while others claim through Lucius of Britain. By 410, during
21609-401: Was the spoken language during this time. Society was tribal; according to Ptolemy 's Geographia there were around 20 tribes in the area. Like other regions on the edge of the Empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans. Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic attempted to invade twice in 55 BC; although largely unsuccessful, he managed to set up a client king from
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