Coalbrookdale is a town in England where new ideas for industry were tried. Here it is at night in 1801. The fires are from the large scale making of iron.

The Industrial Revolution is the name of the time when there was a big change in the way things were made. Instead of things being hand-made in small workshops, they were made more cheaply in large quantities by machines in factories.

This mass production meant that the goods were sold for less. It started in the 1760s. Many people began to move from an agricultural based life in the country to the towns where the factories offered more and better paid work.