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With overseas colonies, the British Empire at the end of the 17th century had a vast source of raw materials and a vast market for manufactured goods. Great Britain was to develop the industry of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. The 18th century was the production of textiles made with wool from the large sheep-farming areas in the Midlands and across the country. Handlooms and spinning wheels were the tools of the trade of the weavers in their cottages, providing employment throughout Britain. The Industrial Revolution was vastly urban. James Hargreaves invented the spinning Jenny in 1765. Another great inventor Richard Arkwright also invented the water frame. These technological advances produced an explosion in the cotton textile industry in the 1780s. By 1790 the new machines produced 10 times as much cotton yarn as had been made in 1770. However the most fundamental advance in technology was James Watt's modern steam engine in 1769. The steam engine made possible the production of more coal. The steam engine also allowed ironmakers to switch from limited charcoal to unlimited coke. This greatly boomed the British iron industry. Because of the mass production of iron it soon became the cheap, basic, indispensible building block of the economy.

__ The Textile Revolution __. About. 19 Apr. 2009 .