The Industrial Revolution is one of the most important fact of the history because it brought such radical changes in people's standard of living.

As a matter of fact the Industrial revolution can be defined as the substitution of the agrarian and maritime economy with a industrialized economic system.

At the end of the 18^th century, Britain was a predominantly agrarian society. However the destruction of common field, the enclosure and the consolidation of small farms into large reduced the number of rural population and therefore caused the Agricultural Revolution. During this period of profound changes, there were obviously some agrarian advances as the breed of cattle, the rotation of crops, the steam plough and the birth of a real agricultural society.

At the same time the substitution of the factory for the domestic system got to new mechanical discoveries not only in textile industry (e.g. spinning-jenny, water frame, Crompton's mule, self-acting mule, steam engine and power loom) but also in iron industry (e.g. smelting by pit coat and the application of steam engine to blast furnaces).

Although on one hand the use of new machines helped change farming into more mechanized activity, on the other hand the need for manual labour decreased.

All these factors drove agricultural worker into towns in search of work. As a consequence new roads, waterways and later railways were built to cut the cost of transporting.

Even if these revolutions improved the way of life of people, the rise in rents (caused by money invested in improvements, enclosures system, the consolidation of farms and the high price of corn) produced social changes in country life: farms became a rich, distinct class and relation between masters and men disappeared. Workers, moreover, began to form trade clubs or associations to look after their interests.