The Age of Industrialisation | Class 10 Social Science Notes

Factories Come Up

The first cotton mill in Bombay was established in 1854, starting production in 1856. By 1862, four mills operated with 94,000 spindles and 2,150 looms. Jute mills began in Bengal in 1855 and 1862. In North India, mills appeared in Kanpur and Ahmedabad in the 1860s, and Madras saw its first spinning and weaving mill by 1874.

Industrialists came from diverse backgrounds. Many early entrepreneurs had made fortunes in trade with China, especially in opium and tea. For example, Dwarkanath Tagore invested in shipping, mining, banking, and plantations. Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Tata built industrial empires partly from China trade and cotton exports. Other merchants operated within India, financing trade and setting up factories.

However, colonial policies restricted Indian merchants from trading in manufactured goods with Europe and edged them out of shipping. European Managing Agencies controlled many industries, mobilising capital and managing companies, often excluding Indian businessmen from chambers of commerce.

Factories required workers, who mostly came from surrounding rural districts. Many workers moved seasonally between villages and cities. Jobbers, often trusted workers from villages, recruited and controlled workers, sometimes demanding bribes. Despite factory growth, factory workers remained a small proportion of the total industrial workforce.

📊 Diagram: Fig. 16 – Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy; Fig. 17 – Dwarkanath Tagore; Fig. 18 – Partners in enterprise – J.N. Tata, R.D. Tata, Sir R.J. Tata, and Sir D.J. Tata; Fig. 19 – Young workers of a Bombay mill, early twentieth century; Fig. 20 – A head jobber; Fig. 21 – Spinners at work in an Ahmedabad mill.

🧪 Activity: Talk to employers and workers in a local industry to learn about its history, technology changes, worker origins, and marketing.

🔗 Connection: This section leads to understanding the peculiarities of industrial growth in colonial India and the predominance of small-scale industries.