The First Industrial Revolution refers to the profound economic and technological transformation that reshaped parts of Europe and North America between circa 1760 and 1840, first and most intensively in Britain under monarchs such as George III (reign 1760–1820). The term Industrial Revolution was popularized in the 19th century by the historian Arnold Toynbee, building on earlier French usage, to describe the shift from agrarian, craft-based economies to systems centered on mechanized production, fossil energy, and wage labor. Driven by innovation in textiles, metallurgy, and steam power, production moved from homes and workshops into factories, accelerating output and transforming patterns of work, settlement, and wealth.

These technological changes triggered rapid urbanization, altered class structures, and generated both unprecedented economic growth and severe social disruption. While early industrialization brought productivity gains, it also produced harsh working conditions, environmental damage, and cyclical instability; by the late 1830s–1840s, economic downturns exposed the limits of early industrial systems. Yet innovations emerging toward the end of this phase, improved transport networks, advances in iron production, and early breakthroughs in communication technologies such as the electric telegraph, laid the foundations for later industrial phases.