The Industrial Revolution is the name given to the period of rapid economic, technological and social change that began in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century and continued into the nineteenth, transforming a largely agricultural society into an industrial one. It was driven by advances in iron smelting, steam power, mechanised textile production, canals and later railways.
Its effects on the decorative arts were profound. At Coalbrookdale, the use of coke to smelt iron allowed cast iron to be produced on an unprecedented scale, leading to everything from bridges to fire grates and garden furniture. Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory in Birmingham produced metalwork, buttons and ormolu, and his partnership with James Watt advanced the steam engine. Josiah Wedgwood applied factory organisation and marketing to pottery at Etruria. New processes such as transfer printing, Sheffield plate, pressed glass and electroplating made fashionable goods affordable to a growing middle class. Critics such as John Ruskin and William Morris reacted against machine production, inspiring the Arts and Crafts movement. Collectors today value both the products of early industry and objects that document its machines, factories and engineering achievements.
