Industrial Revolution

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Built from more than 160 million records and spanning over three centuries, the University of Cambridge's Economies Past website uses census data, parish registers, probate records and more to track changes to the British labor force from the Elizabethan era to the eve of World War One.

The research shows that 17th century Britain saw a steep decline in agricultural peasantry, and a surge in people who manufactured goods: from local artisans like blacksmiths, shoemakers and wheelwrights, to an explosion in networks of home-based weavers producing cloth for wholesale.

Historians say the data suggests that Britain was emerging as the world's first industrial powerhouse several generations before the mills and steam engines of the late 18th century—long credited as the birth of global industry and economic growth.

https://phys.org/news/2024-04-britain-began-industrializing-17th-century.html