The Rise Of The West Midlands Industrial Zone In England (From The Middle 17^th Century To The Middle 19^th Century)

This paper mainly studied the rising of the West Midlands industrial zone from three aspects,including the conditions and foundations for the rising of the West Midlands industrial zone,the period of proto-industrialization and development of the West Midlands industrial zone during the Industrial Revolution,so as to evaluate its status and contribution in the British Industrial RevolutionIn order to make a whole understanding of the West Midlands economy before the middle of the 17th century and to analyze the conditions and foundations for the rising of the West Midlands industrial zone.The first chapter gave an overview of the economic situation of the West Midlands industrial area from three aspects,such as natural environment and geographical conditions,development of agriculture and animal husbancdry and the initial stage of rural iron industry in the West Midlands.The second chapter discussed the period from the middle of the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century during which period the West Midlands showed up as a famous"proto-Industrialization" region.The rising of a number of new cities were accelerated by the development of rural industry,and the commodity circulation system was established on the foundation of increasing demand of domestic and international market and improvement of water and land transportation conditions.Finally the West Midlands rural industry could be understood from an overall perspective by a discussion of dissertation.The expanding of industrial scale and the emergence of new production system in the West Midlands were promoted by using of new technologies such as steam engine during the the Industrial Revolution from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century.Coal industry and iron industry were the two mainly parts studied in this paper,and the way how the city agglomeration formed was also discussed.The West Midlands industrial zone played an important role during the process of British industrialization.This paper studied the way how the West Midlands developed from a medieval farming and animal husbandry economic zone in the Middle Ages to a typical "Proto-Industrialized" region by a timeline.The West Midlands,a famous industrial zone during the Industrial Revolution,together with the neighboring Lancashire Textile District,became the cradle of the Industrial Revolution.Besides this paper also revealed every development characteristics of the West Midlands in each period and presented a comprehensive understanding of the development of the West Midlands.