The population of Birmingham grew from 73,000 in 1801 to 200,000 in 1844 ; that of Sheffield from 46,000 in 1801 to 110,000 in 1844 , and the consumption of coal in the latter city alone reached in 1836 , 515,000 tons. In 1805 there were exported 4,300 tons of iron products and 4,600 tons of pig-iron; in 1834 , 16,200 tons of iron products and 107,000 tons of pig-iron, while the whole iron product reaching in 1740 but 17,000 tons, had risen in 1834 to nearly 700,000 tons.
The smelting of pig-iron alone consumes yearly more than 3,000,000 tons of coal, and the importance which coal mining has attained in the course of the last 60 years can scarcely be conceived. All the English and Scotch deposits are now worked, and the mines of Northumberland and Durham alone yield annually more than 5,000,000 tons for shipping, and employ from 40 to 50,000 men. According to the Durham Chronicle , there were worked in these two counties: In 1753 , 14 mines; in 1800 , 40 mines; in 1836 , 76 mines; in 1843 , 130 mines. Moreover, all mines are now much more energetically worked than formerly.
A similarly increased activity was applied to the working of tin, copper, and lead, and alongside of the extension of glass manufacture arose a new branch of industry in the production of pottery, rendered important by the efforts of Josiah Wedgewood, about 1763 .
This inventor placed the whole manufacture of stoneware on a scientific basis, introduced better taste, and founded the potteries of North Staffordshire, a district of eight English miles square, which, formerly a desert waste, is now sown with works and dwellings, and supports more than 60,000 people.
Into this universal whirl of activity everything was drawn.