History books are wrong about British industrialization. It started perhaps as early as 1550

Amazing stuff! 

The invention of the steam engine was rather a consequence and an add on.

Eternal lessons of:

• Classical liberalism
• Limited, and small government
• Division of labor
• Powerful minority groups exploit the majority for their own gain

And when did the industrial revolution start in China? Much earlier then the British one!

"... They went through 160 million records on the website including parish registers, census data, probate records, and loads of other information related to the British labor force right from the beginning of the Elizabeth era to the onset of World War I. They were looking for demographic signs of industrialization. ...

According to the study, the 17th century witnessed a dramatic shift in the labor market. While a large number of people in Britain were leaving agricultural work, there was a rise in small-scale manufacturing activities.

For instance, the total number of male agricultural workers dropped from 64% to 42% between 1600 and 1740. The number of male workers in goods manufacturing jumped from 28% to 42% during the same period.

The study authors suggest that it is likely that this industrialization may have started earlier, perhaps around 1550. However, they currently don’t have hard evidence for the second half of the sixteenth century.  ..."

"Britain was already well on its way to an industrialised economy under the reign of the Stuarts in the 17th century – over 100 years before textbooks mark the start of the Industrial Revolution – according to the most detailed occupational history of a nation ever constructed. ...

“However, the English economy of the time was more liberal, with fewer tariffs and restrictions, unlike on the continent.”

Moving goods within many European countries was subject to tolls from land barons, so markets were often very local. In England there are few records of such levies after the medieval era.     

... trade guilds also had more power in other nations. For example, textile production was prohibited in the countryside around the Dutch city of Leiden, and in Sweden no shops were permitted in rural areas within a ten-mile radius of a town until the 19th century.

Yet in the England of 1700, half of all manufacturing employment was in the countryside. “In addition to village artisans, there were networks of weavers in rural areas who would work for merchants that supplied wool and sold the finished articles,” ...

“We think labour force participation for adult women was somewhere between 60-80% of in 1760, and back down to 43% by 1851,” ... “It didn’t return to those mid-18th century levels until the 1980s.”  ..."

History books are wrong about British industrialization. It started way earlier The British Industrial Revolution didn't begin in the 1760s, it had started way back in the 1600s but even historians didn't know about it.

Britain began industrializing in the 17th century – over a 100 years earlier than history books claim (original news source)