Steam Power
The long-established industrial processes in the city meant that it was actually quite late in adopting the methods of the Industrial Revolution - manufacturing was so efficient and workshops so small that the steam engine, developed in Birmingham by Boulton and James Watt around 1770, did not find widespread use in the city for another sixty years (in 1815, there were only about forty steam engines in the town, many very small). However, steam power and improvements in iron manufacturing processes were important in the development of the nearby Black Country, which by the end of the 18th century supplied much of the metal needed by Birmingham's manufacturing industries.
Read more about this topic: Economic History Of Birmingham
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