UK series 英国系列 7 | The Industrial Revolution 工业革命
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It was in the UK that the Industrial Revolution began and so the question comes to mind, how did it begin and why in the UK and not somewhere else in the world? Well, experts have put in some major factors that contributed to the industrial revolution, the factors came together in the late eighteenth century to create the unique conditions in the UK for the world’s first ever Industrial Revolution.
工业革命是在英国开始的，于是人们会想到一个问题：工业革命是如何开始的？为什么工业革命是在英国而不是在世界其他地方开始的？那么，专家们已经提出了一些促成工业革命的主要因素，这些因素在18世纪末在英国都出现了，帮助提供英国实现第一次工业革命创造了独特的条件。
The factors that contributed to the industrial revolution in the UK starts with the agricultural revolution. The agricultural revolution increased food production and helped in population growth. Population growth forced more people from the countryside to move to the cities to work for wages which increased demand for products such as clothing.
促成英国工业革命的因素始于农业革命。农业革命增加了粮食产量，促进了人口增长。人口增长迫使越来越多的农村人搬到城市打工，这增加了对服装等产品的需求。
The increased population in the cities created an environment for financial innovations, this in turn encouraged scholars to use scientific theories to innovate and further improve mechanical, financial and technological challenges. These all were also happening everywhere in the world but in a slow pace, what made the UK different are some of the things below:
城市人口的增长为金融创新提供了合适的环境，这反过来又鼓励科学家运用科学理论进行创新，进一步改善机械、金融和技术方面的挑战。这一切也在世界各地发生的，但速度缓慢，使英国与众不同的是以下几点：
Navigable rivers and canals made transportation of raw materials and finished products easier and cheaper.
可通航的河流和运河使原材料和成品的运输更加方便和便宜。
Plenty of coal and iron deposits helped with the development of new machines that were made of iron and powered by coal.
大量的煤和铁矿藏有助于开发以煤为动力、由铁制成的新机器。
Patent laws allowed investors to benefit financially from the intellectual property of the inventions.
专利法允许投资者从发明的知识产权中获得经济利益。
Global trade policies such as the expansion of the Navy to protect trade and financial incentives to companies helped them to explore the world to find resources.
全球贸易政策，如扩大海军以保护贸易和对公司的财政激励，帮助它们探索世界寻找资源。
Cottage Industry served as a transition from a rural to an industrial economy. These were generally small scale and relatively unsophisticated. Most of textile production, for example, was centered on small workshops or in the home of spinners, weavers and dyers.
家庭手工业是从农村经济向工业经济的过渡。一般规模较小，相对简单。例如，大多数纺织生产集中在小作坊或纺纱厂、织布厂和染色厂。
As population grew, more people needed to buy textile goods, small workshops could not keep up with the growing demand. In the early eighteenth century, cotton textiles had many production advantages over other types of cloth. Compared to silk, cotton is far less expensive. It is also stronger and more easily colored and washed than wool or linen. One challenge of using cotton, however, was that the British did not grow any cotton plants because of their cold climate.
随着人口的增长，越来越多的人需要购买纺织品，小作坊无法跟上不断增长的需求。在18世纪初，棉织物生产优势比其他布料好很多且与丝绸相比，棉花便宜得多。它也比羊毛或亚麻更结实，更容易上色和洗涤。然而，使用棉花的一个挑战是，由于气候寒冷，在英国没有办法种植棉株。
So, they started to increase trade with cotton producers far across the world, such as India and the Southern United States. Almost all of the raw cotton that was processed by slave labor was sold to England. So, it is understood that, cotton production soared as new inventions made textile production increasingly inexpensive and efficient.
因此，他们开始更加与世界各地棉花生产商的贸易，如印度和美国南部。几乎所有经过奴隶劳动加工的原棉都销往英国。因此，据了解，随着新发明使纺织生产变得越来越便宜和高效，棉花产量猛增。
In 1733, John Kay invented a simple weaving machine called the flying shuttle. It came into general use in the 1760s—after decades of trial-and-error improvements—but once adopted, this first big invention in the textile industry doubled worker productivity and now, one adult weaver could accomplish the work of two.
1733年，约翰凯发明了一种简单的织机，叫做飞梭。经过几十年的反复改进，这项发明在17世纪60年代开始普遍使用，但一旦被采用，纺织业的第一项重大发明使工人生产率翻了一番，在这个时候，一个成年织布工可以完成两个人的工作。
The invention was a small improvement and was still powered by people rather than coal, wind, or water. Nonetheless it began the crucial process by which unskilled workers could produce more cloth with machines than skilled workers could produce by hand.
这项发明只是一个小小的改进，仍然是由人而不是煤、风或水驱动的。尽管如此，它还是开始了一个关键的过程，通过这个过程，非熟练工人可以用机器生产比熟练工人手工生产更多的布料。
In 1764, James Hargreaves invented a device called a spinning jenny— “jenny” or “jen” was short for “engine.” The spinning machine immediately increased by eightfold the amount a worker could produce. The spinning jenny could fit into a small cottage and be operated by unskilled workers, including children. But workers skilled at the old spinning wheel, and fearful that the new machine would take their jobs, marched over to Hargreaves’ house and destroyed twenty of the first new machines before they could be used.
1764年，詹姆斯·哈格里夫斯发明了一种称为纺纱机的装置叫做珍妮——“珍妮”是“发动机”的缩写，纺纱机立即翻了一个工人的产量八倍。纺纱机“珍妮”可以装进一个小农舍，由包括儿童在内的非熟练工人操作。但熟练使用旧纺车的工人们担心新机器会夺走他们的工作，于是大步走到哈格里夫斯家，在第一批新机器投入使用前就摧毁了其中20台。
In 1769, Richard Arkwright, a barber and wigmaker, figured out how to hook up a new spinning machine to a water wheel. Arkwright’s spinning factory opened in 1771 along the River Derwent. It was an immediate success, spinning strong, high-quality threads cheaply and better than those spun by hand or a spinning jenny. His business took off in large part due to the assistance of the British Parliament, which, to protect the new English textile industry, outlawed the importation of superior cotton cloth from India.
1769年，理发师兼假发师理查德阿克赖特（Richard arkrwight）想出了如何连接纺纱机和水车的方法。1771年，阿克莱特的纺纱厂在德温特河沿岸开业。这是一个立竿见影的成功，纺出了结实、优质的线，价格便宜，而且比手工或珍妮纺纱的线要好。他的生意在很大程度上得益于英国议会的帮助，因为当时英国议会为了保护新的英国纺织业，禁止了从印度进口高级棉布。
Samuel Crompton combined the spinning and weaving process into one machine in 1774. Raw cotton could be introduced in one end and produce cloth on the other. But he failed to patent his invention, and the enterprising Arkwright immediately incorporated it into his new factories.
1774年，塞缪尔·克朗普顿将纺纱和织造工艺结合一起。原棉可以一端引进，另一端生产布料。但是他没有给他的发明申请专利，富有进取心的阿克赖特立即把它并利用在他的新工厂。
With the new machine, Arkwright now had the most productive textile mills in the world. Arkwright guarded his patents and charged extremely high royalties to use them. As a result, he dominated the early spinning industry and became fabulously wealthy.
有了这台新机器，阿克赖特当时拥有了世界上产量最高的纺织厂。阿克赖特利用专利保护法律从别人收取极高的使用费。因此，他主导了早期的纺织业，并成为了很富有。
In 1785, Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom, another game changer. It did not become widely used until after 1800, it was powered by steam and thus replaced the flying shuttle, which could not compete with the new loom’s weaving speed and efficiency. The first power looms were installed in a factory in Manchester, where they suffered a similar fate to the first spinning jennies.
1785年，埃德蒙·卡特赖特发明了另一种改变了常规的织布机。这个机器直到1800年才被广泛使用，它是由蒸汽驱动的，因此取代了不能与新织机的织造速度和效率竞争的飞行梭。第一台动力织机安装在曼彻斯特的一家工厂，在那里，它们遭遇了与第一台纺纱机相似的命运。
Some Manchester craft weavers, worried that they would lose their skilled jobs, threatened the first power loom factory and soon afterwards a fire mysteriously destroyed it. The power loom and the steam engine that powered it could not fit into a cottage. All these big, heavy machines would need to be brought under one large roof. The cottage industry had died, but factories were just beginning to house industry.
曼彻斯特的一些手工织布工担心自己会失去工作，威胁到第一家动力织布机工厂，不久之后，一场大火神秘地摧毁了这家工厂。动力织布机和给它提供动力的蒸汽机不能装进小屋。所有这些又大又重的机器都需要放在一个大屋顶下。
Iron 铁
In the 18th century, ironmongers wanted to make their iron stronger and less expensive, and they also wanted to make the tedious process of iron-making more efficient. Henry Cort discovered two methods for refining iron that changed the industry. He called the process “puddling and rolling” and patented it in 1785.
在18世纪，铁匠们想使铁更坚固，价格更低，他们还想让单调乏味的炼铁过程更有效率。亨利·科尔特发现了两种炼铁方法而改变了钢铁工业。他称这一工艺为“搅拌和滚压”，并于1785年获得专利
This iron-refining process allowed England to stop importing iron from northern Europe and instead to grow the largest iron industry in the world. This cheaper and stronger iron galvanized every major industry—construction, tools, shipbuilding, textile inventions, steam engines and railroads. Unfortunately, Cort later lost all the wealth he created for himself, including his patents, when it was discovered that he had embezzled money from the British Navy to buy his first iron forgery.
这一炼铁过程使英国停止从北欧进口铁，转而发展世界上最大的钢铁工业国。这种更便宜、更坚固的铁镀锌了每一个主要工业建筑、工具、造船、纺织发明、蒸汽机和铁路。不幸的是，科尔特后来失去了他为自己创造的所有财富，包括他的专利，因为被暴露了他盗用了英国海军的钱来购买他的第一个iron forgery。
The defining invention of the Industrial Revolution was most definitely the steam engine. The steam engine was the energy behind the most advanced textile inventions, such as the spinning mule and the power loom. It symbolized the transition from human power in homes to machine power in factories. Moreover, the steam engine revolutionized transportation when it was applied to locomotives and ships.
工业革命的决定性发明无疑是蒸汽机。蒸汽机是最先进的纺织发明背后的能源，如纺纱骡和动力织机。它象征着从家庭中的人力到工厂中的机器动力的转变。此外，蒸汽机在机车和船舶上的应用使运输发生了革命性的变化。
The steam engine was originally invented in England to pull water out of coal mines. In the 1760s, James Watt (1736-1819) teamed up with professors from the University of Glasgow to improve Newcomen’s engine. The piston cylinder in Newcomen’s engine had to alternate between hot and cold temperatures, to expand or condense the steam—warm on the upstroke and cold on the downstroke.
蒸汽机最初是在英国发明的，用来从煤矿里抽水。17世纪60年代，詹姆斯瓦特（1736-1819）与格拉斯哥大学的教授合作改进纽科门的引擎。纽科门发动机中的活塞缸必须在冷热温度之间交替，以膨胀或冷凝上升冲程时的热蒸汽和下降冲程时的冷蒸汽。
But this resulted in a waste of energy and a waste of time, as the piston cylinder changed temperature and had to be constantly reheated. The burning question: how could the piston cylinder remain hot and cool at the same time?
但这导致了能量和时间的浪费，因为活塞缸的温度发生了变化，必须不断地重新加热。关键的问题是：活塞缸怎么能同时保持热和冷？
In 1765, the twenty-nine-year-old Watt, wanted to improve the efficiency of the current used steam engine. After years of struggling on his own to make the new steam engine work correctly, Watt successfully teamed up with the largest and most famous factory in the world, Soho Manufactory, which made jewelry, silverware, and tools in Birmingham, England. At Soho, Watt met and collaborated with the most skilled ironworkers and engineers in the country.
1765年，29岁的瓦特想提高目前使用的蒸汽机的效率。经过多年的努力使新蒸汽机工作，瓦特成功地与世界上最大和最著名的工厂，Soho制造厂合作，当时Soho在英国伯明翰生产珠宝、银器和工具。在那里，瓦特会见了国内最熟练的钢铁工人和工程师，并与他们合作。
With their help, the new engine became four times as productive as the old one. Watt continued to improve it and created a double-acting piston. In 1781, Watt adapted the engine from a reciprocal up-and-down motion to a turning or rotary motion. He patented a steam-powered carriage but didn’t think much would come of it.
在他们的帮助下，新发动机的生产率提高到旧发动机的四倍。瓦特继续改进它，并创造了一个双作用活塞。1781年，瓦特将发动机从上下往复运动调整为转动或旋转运动。他申请了蒸汽动力马车的专利，但没想过会有什么收获。
Watt’s rotary steam engine was being perfected just at the same moment that iron-working improved and textile inventions were becoming more powerful, greater in size, sizeable and in need of better, cheaper, and more reliable power sources. The new steam engine could be harnessed to all these new inventions. In 1782, the year after Watt perfected the rotary steam engine, there were only two cotton mill factories in Manchester. Twenty years later there were more than 50.
瓦特的旋转蒸汽机正在不断完善，与此同时，炼铁技术也在不断改进，纺织业的发明也在变得越来越强大、规模越来越大，需要更好、更便宜、更可靠的电源。新蒸汽机可以用于所有这些新发明。1782年，瓦特完善旋转蒸汽机的第二年，曼彻斯特只有两家棉纺厂，20年后，有了50多个。
The Factory 工厂
The idea for the first textile factory—a word derived from “manufactory,” the place where goods were manufactured—came from a British silk mill worker, John Lombe. He travelled to Northern Italy to stole designs for secret Italian machines that spun and wove the silk (it is worth noting here that the Chinese had been spinning and weaving silk with simple looms for thousands of years before the Italians.)
第一个纺织厂的概念——一个源自“manufactory”的词，制造货物的地方来自英国丝绸厂工人约翰·洛姆贝。他到意大利北部去盗意大利秘密机器的设计，这些机器用来纺和织丝绸（在这里这里值得一提的是，在意大利人没有开始用这些机器，中国人已经用简单的织机纺和织丝绸几千年了。）
In 1719, Lombe patented the ideas as his own in Great Britain and built a large building next to a river to use a water wheel to power the machines. The mill was five stories high and employed 200 men.
1719年，洛姆贝在英国将这些想法用自己的名义申请了专利，并在河边建了一座大建筑用水车给机器提供动力。这家工厂有五层楼高，雇用了200名工人。
With the invention of Watt’s rotary steam engine, textile factories no longer had to be built right next to a river. However large buildings were required for the new large steam engines, spinning mules, and power looms. In 1790, Arkwright used steam power to run his spinning mule factory. Workers, along with their families, congregated at these new factories.
随着瓦特旋转蒸汽机的发明，纺织厂不再需要建在河边。然而，新的大型蒸汽机、纺纱骡和动力织机需要大型建筑物。1790年，阿克赖特用蒸汽动力经营他的纺纱骡工厂。工人和他们的家人聚集在这些新工厂附近。
Their need for stores, churches and the like resulted in the formation of small communities, which became towns and cities. Another important result of the factory was specialization of labor. In 1776, Adam Smith, a Scottish economist, wrote the all-time most influential and famous economics book: Wealth of Nations. For Smith, the key to the efficiency, productivity, and quality control of a factory was the division of labor.
他们对商店、教堂等的需求导致了小社区的形成，小社区变成了城镇。工厂的另一个重要成果是劳动专业化。1776年，苏格兰经济学家亚当·斯密斯（Adam Smith）撰写了有史以来最具影响力和最著名的经济学著作：国富论。对史密斯来说，工厂的效率、生产率和质量控制的关键是分工。
Railroads 铁路
The steam engine also sparked innovative methods of transportation. Railways were not new in pre-industrial Britain. There were over 1,000 railways by 1800, most of them connected to an iron pit or a coal mine with a canal or river. But all of these railways were drawn by horses. In fact, horses were the best form of land transportation in Eurasia since the beginning of time; the only other option was to walk.
蒸汽机也引发了运输方式的创新。铁路在工业化前的英国并不新鲜，到1800年，有了1000多条铁路，其中大部分都与一个铁矿坑或一个有运河或河流的煤矿相连。但所有这些铁路都是马拉的。事实上，马是欧亚大陆自古以来最好的陆路交通工具，唯一另外个选择就是步行。
The first steam-powered locomotive invented by Richard Trevithick took its maiden voyage down the main street of Camborne, England on Christmas Eve in 1801. An ironworks owner built a nine-mile railway to compete with a canal. Horses pulled cars full of iron and coal along the rails.
1801年平安夜，理查德·特雷维希克发明的第一台蒸汽机车在英国坎伯恩大街上进行了初次启动。一个铁厂老板建造了一条九英里长的铁路来与运河竞争。马沿着铁轨拉着装满铁和煤的汽车。
In a competition, Trevithick’s locomotive succeeded in hauling ten tons of bar iron and seventy passengers along rails at a speed of five miles per hour. Sadly, Trevithick could never turn the invention into financial success: he died in Peru failing in his attempt to seek his fortune in silver mines.
在一次比赛中，特雷维希克的机车以每小时5英里的速度成功地将10吨铁条和70名乘客沿铁轨运送。不幸的是，特雷维希克永远无法将这项发明转化为经济上的成功：他在秘鲁淘银失败而死的。
A young self-taught engineer, George Stephenson, picked up where Trevithick left off. Stephenson was raised in coalfields, where his family worked. Stephenson grew up illiterate, like the rest of his family, but, as a teenager, taught himself to read and hired a tutor to teach him basic math. To make extra money, he learned to repair watches.
一位自学成才的年轻工程师乔治·斯蒂芬森（George Stephenson）继续特雷维希克的工作。由于斯蒂芬森的家人都在煤田工作，他是在那里长大。斯蒂芬森和他家的其他人一样，都是文盲，但他在十几岁的时候，他自学阅读，并雇了一个家庭教师教他基本的数学。为了挣外快，他学会了修理手表。
At 22 years old, Stephenson was put in charge of running a Watt steam engine at a spinning factory. Over the following years, he taught himself mechanical engineering by taking apart steam engines and other machines, putting them back together. He took out patents on a steam engine locomotive and iron rails in 1816.
22岁时，斯蒂芬森被派到一家纺纱厂负责一台瓦特蒸汽机的运转。在接下来的几年里，他自学机械工程，把蒸汽机和其他机器拆开，重新组装起来。1816年，他获得了蒸汽机车和铁轨的专利。
In 1825, Stephenson was commissioned to construct a 30-mile railway line from Liverpool to Manchester. Manchester was the largest industrial town in the world, and merchants needed to transport lots of cotton and finished cloth. Despite its young age, Liverpool, as the port for the Manchester cotton industry, handled one third of the world’s trade.
1825，史蒂芬森受命建造一条从利物浦到曼彻斯特的30英里铁路。当时曼彻斯特是世界上最大的工业城市，商人需要运输大量的棉花和布料。尽管利物浦还很小，但作为曼彻斯特棉花工业的港口，它处理了世界贸易的三分之一。
Stephenson surveyed the route and built the railway. In 1829, the railway owners sponsored a contest to find out who could make the fastest and most reliable locomotive to run on the newly built Manchester-to-Liverpool railway. Most contestants entered steam-powered vehicles, but one participant actually used a horse trotting on a treadmill attached to a car. A man named George and his son, Robert, called their locomotive the Rocket. They defeated five competitors and reached average speeds of at least 29 miles per hour.
斯蒂芬森勘测了这条路线并修建了铁路。1829年，铁路业主发起了一场竞赛，以找出谁能在新建的曼彻斯特至利物浦铁路上运行最快、最可靠的机车。大多数参赛者进入蒸汽动力汽车，但有一名参赛者实际使用了一个跑步机上的马匹小跑连接到一辆汽车。一个叫乔治和他的儿子罗伯特的人把他们的火车头叫做火箭。他们击败了五个竞争者，达到了每小时至少29英里的平均速度。
On the day the Manchester-to-Liverpool railroad was opened to the public, a member of Parliament and a supporter of the railway was accidently killed by the Rocket. In a failed attempt to save the gentleman’s life, Stephenson opened up the throttle to top speed and made a heroic dash to a hospital in the next town—and he averaged 35 mph for 15 miles. The competition garnered much attention in England and Europe; Stephenson and other top competitors took offers for their new locomotives from as far away as Russia.
在曼彻斯特至利物浦铁路向公众开放的当天，一名议员和铁路支持者被火箭意外炸死。为了挽救这位先生的生命，斯蒂芬森打开了油门，以最快的速度冲向下一个城镇的一家医院，他平均时速35英里，跑了15英里。这项竞争在英国和欧洲引起了很大的关注；斯蒂芬森和其他顶级竞争对手从遥远的俄罗斯接受了他们的新机车的报价。
In 1831, just two years after the race, the Liverpool-to-Manchester railway carried 450,000 passengers, 43,000 tons of cotton, and 11,000 tons of coal. By 1835, the railway carried 120,000 tons of coal.
1831年，就在比赛结束两年后，利物浦至曼彻斯特铁路运送了45万名乘客、4.3万吨棉花和1.1万吨煤炭。到1835年，铁路运输了12万吨煤。
Stephenson’s success was a culmination of over a century of industrial innovation. The Rocket had incorporated the steam engines of Newcomen and Watt, Cort’s iron-refining innovations, and Trevithick’s original locomotive. But, it also would not have occurred were it not for the rising cotton industry that created the need for the railroad in the industrial town of Manchester.
斯蒂芬森的成功是一个多世纪工业创新的顶峰。火箭融合了纽科门和瓦特的蒸汽机、科尔特的炼铁创新技术和特雷维希克的原始机车。但是，如果不是新兴的棉花产业在曼彻斯特这个工业城镇创造了铁路的需求，这也不会发生。
And, of course, the new railroads used coal as the main fuel source. The ultimate triumph of the Industrial Revolution, railroads moved people, raw materials, and finished goods rapidly around England. This interaction brought people to the new industrial cities; gradually increased trade within England, Europe, and the world; and helped turn the UK into the wealthiest nation on earth.
当然，新铁路使用煤炭作为主要燃料来源。作为工业革命的最终胜利，铁路迅速地把人们、原材料和制成品运到了英国各地。这种互动将人们带到了新的工业城市；逐渐增加了英国、欧洲和世界范围内的贸易；并帮助英国成为世界上最富有的国家之一。
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