Engels On The Working Class In England (1845)

Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Oxford Univ. Press edition: 2009; pp. 15, 17, 18)

ʻThe history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the [nineteenth] century, with the invention of the steam engine and of machinery for working cotton.

These inventions gave rise, as is well known, to an industrial revolution, a revolution which altered the whole civil society; one, the historical importance of which is only now [1845] beginning to be recognized.

England is the classic soil of this transformation, which was all the mightier, the more silently it proceeded; and England is, therefore, the classic land of its chief product also, the proletariat.

Only in England can the proletariat be studied in all its relations and from all sides. . .

ʻThe first invention which gave rise to a radical change in the state of the English workers was the jenny, invented in the year 1764 by a weaver, James Hargreaves, of Standhill, near Blackburn, in North Lancashire.

This machine was the rough beginning of the later invented mule, and was moved by hand.

Instead of one spindle like the ordinary spinningwheel, it carried sixteen or eighteen manipulated by a single workman.

This invention made it possible to deliver more yarn than heretofore. Whereas, though one weaver had employed three spinners, there had never been enough yarn, and the weaver had often been obliged to wait for it, there was now more yarn to be had than could be woven by the available workers.

The demand for woven goods, already increasing, rose yet more in consequence of the cheapness of these goods, which cheapness, in turn, was the outcome of the diminished cost of producing the yarn.

More weavers were needed, and weavers' wages rose. Now that the weaver could earn more at his loom, he gradually abandoned his farming, and gave his whole time to weaving. . . .

By degrees the class of farming weavers wholly disappeared, and was merged in the newly arising class of weavers who lived wholly upon wages, had no property whatever, not even the pretended property of a holding, and so became working men, proletarians.

Moreover, the old relation between spinner and weaver was destroyed. Hitherto, so far as this had been possible, yarn had been spun and woven under one roof.

Now that the jenny as well as the loom required a strong hand, men began to spin, and whole families lived by spinning, while others laid the antiquated, superseded spinning-wheel aside; and, if they had not means of purchasing a jenny, were forced to live upon the wages of the father alone.

Thus began with spinning and weaving that division of labour which has since been so infinitely perfected.ʼ

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