The Upper Furnace Pool of the Coalbrookdale foundries. It provided water to power the bellows for the blast furnaces, and the turning and grinding machines. The railway viaduct was built in 1862–64, and still carries trains taking coal to the Ironbridge power station.

New factories, built during industrialisation. This is a drawing made around 1860

The effect of industrialisation shown by rising income levels since 1500. The graph shows the gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) per head between 1500 and 1950 in 1990 equivalent dollars for selected nations.

Industrialisation (or industrialization) is a process that happens in countries when they start to use machines to do work that was once done by people. Industrialisation changes the things people do. Industrialisation caused towns to grow larger. Many people left farming to take higher paid jobs in factories in towns.