Education, Science and Industrialization, 1750s–1850s

Social scientists have suggested that for a national economy to achieve self-sustaining industrial growth, some 30–40 per cent of its population need to be literate, and that the British Industrial Revolution exemplifies this: literacy rates in both England and Scotland had crossed that threshold by 1750.1 Such a vaguely defined concept is, however, of dubious value when applied to British economic expansion in this period. It is not evident why, even if applicable to twentieth-century economies (which is uncertain), it should pertain to eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conditions. Evidence for measuring economic growth rates in that period is often less than adequate and the chronology of industrialization contentious, and while signature evidence is useful for spatial and chronological comparison of levels of elementary education, it is rudimentary as an absolute measure (Chapter 2). Moreover, by the mid eighteenth century most nations in north-west Europe had literacy levels as good as or better than Britain’s without experiencing an industrial revolution.2