Class 10 History Chapter 4, The Age of Industrialisation, examines proto-industrialisation before factories, the pace of industrial change in Britain, hand labour vs steam power in Victorian Britain, the plight of Indian weavers under the East India Company, the rise of Indian cotton and jute mills, and how advertisements created new consumer markets.
What Class 10 Social Science (History) Chapter 4 Covers
1. Before the Industrial Revolution & 2. Hand Labour and Steam Power defines proto-industrialisation (17th–18th century merchants moving to the countryside to advance money to peasants and artisans to produce for an international market because urban crafts and trade guilds restricted new entrants in towns), traces early cotton mills (Richard Arkwright), James Watt’s steam engine (1781, patented by Mathew Boulton) and Spinning Jenny (devised by James Hargreaves in 1764, attacked by women spinners), and explains why Victorian Britain industrialists often preferred hand labour over expensive machines.
3. Industrialisation in the Colonies & 4. Factories Come Up shows how the East India Company appointed paid servants called gomasthas and used the system of advances to monopolise Indian weavers before Manchester machine-made cotton imports flooded India in the 19th century, and traces early Indian entrepreneurs—Dwarkanath Tagore, Dinshaw Petit, Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee Tata, Seth Hukumchand and G.D. Birla—alongside the jobber who recruited rural millworkers.
5. The Peculiarities of Industrial Growth & 6. Market for Goods explains how Indian mills produced coarse cotton yarn (later shifting to cloth during the Swadeshi movement and soaring during the First World War when Manchester imports declined), how small-scale handloom production expanded in the 20th century by adopting the fly shuttle, and how British and Indian manufacturers used labels (‘MADE IN MANCHESTER’), images of Indian gods and goddesses, calendars, and nationalist figures to advertise goods.
Exercises in Chapter 4
- Write in Brief & Discuss (7 Questions) explain why women workers in Britain attacked the Spinning Jenny, why the port of Surat declined by the end of the eighteenth century, why the East India Company appointed gomasthas to supervise weavers in India, how proto-industrialisation worked, why some industrialists in nineteenth-century Europe preferred hand labour over machines, and how industrial production in India increased during the First World War.
Read Class 10 Social Science (History) Chapter 4 Online
More Chapters
- Previous: Chapter 3: The Making of a Global World
- Next: Chapter 5: Print Culture and the Modern World
- Hindi medium: Class 10 History Chapter 4 PDF in Hindi (Bharat aur Samakalin Vishwa II)
- All Social Science (History) chapters and the other Class 10 books: Class 10 NCERT books 2026-27
- All Class 1 to 12 NCERT Textbooks: NCERT Books PDF (Class 1–12)
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FAQ
Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War?
During the First World War, British mills were busy with war production to meet the needs of the army, so Manchester imports into India declined sharply. Suddenly, Indian mills had a vast home market to supply, and as the war prolonged, Indian factories were also called upon to supply war needs—jute bags, cloth for army uniforms, tents, leather boots, horse and mule saddles—leading to new factories, multiple shifts and a boom in Indian industrial production.
Who were the gomasthas and why were there clashes between weavers and gomasthas?
The East India Company appointed paid servants called gomasthas to supervise weavers, collect supplies, and examine the quality of cloth. Unlike earlier supply merchants who lived within the weaving villages and had close social ties with weavers, the new gomasthas were outsiders who acted arrogantly, marched into villages with sepoys and peons, and punished weavers for delays in supply, while weavers were tied by loans and unable to bargain or sell to other buyers.