The Age of Industrialisation

### a) Women workers in Britain attacked the Spinning Jenny
Women who earned their living by hand-spinning feared that the Spinning Jenny would replace their work. It reduced the need for manual labour, so they attacked the machines to protect their livelihood.

### b) In the seventeenth century merchants from towns in Europe began employing peasants and artisans within the villages
Merchants did this because town guilds controlled production in towns and restricted new business. So merchants moved to the countryside, where they could give advances to peasants and artisans and have goods produced for the international market.

### c) The port of Surat declined by the end of the eighteenth century
Surat declined because the European companies gradually gained power, secured trade concessions and monopoly rights, and shifted trade to Bombay and Calcutta. As a result, exports from Surat fell and the old trading network collapsed.

### d) The East India Company appointed *gomasthas* to supervise weavers in India
The Company appointed gomasthas to establish direct control over weavers, collect supplies, check cloth quality, prevent weavers from selling to other buyers, and ensure a regular supply of textiles for export.

1. False — At the end of the nineteenth century, less than 20 per cent of the total workforce was employed in technologically advanced industrial sectors.
2. True — India dominated the international market for fine textiles till the eighteenth century.
3. False — The American Civil War caused Britain to turn to India for cotton, so cotton exports from India increased, not decreased.
4. True — The fly shuttle increased productivity and helped handloom workers weave faster.

Proto-industrialisation refers to the early phase of industrial production before factories came up. In this system, merchants supplied money and raw material to peasants and artisans in the countryside, and they produced goods for an international market from their homes or small workshops, not in factories.

Some industrialists in nineteenth-century Europe preferred hand labour over machines for several reasons:

- There was no shortage of labour, so wages were low and machines were not necessary to save labour.
- Many industries had seasonal demand, so workers hired by hand for the season were more useful than expensive machines.
- Many goods needed intricate designs and special shapes, which could be made better by skilled hand workers.
- The upper classes preferred handmade goods because they seemed refined, better finished, and individually made.
- Machines were costly, often broke down, and industrialists were cautious about investing in them.

So hand labour remained important even in the age of factories.