The Age of Industrialisation — Questions & Answers

Sample questions from The Age of Industrialisation

1. Q1. A "jobber" in a nineteenth-century Indian factory was a person who:

   • A.Owned the factory
   • B.Was an old and trusted worker employed to get new recruits, and who gained power and money in the process✓
   • C.Inspected the machines
   • D.Sold the finished cloth
   Solution

   Industrialists usually employed a jobber to get new recruits; the jobber was often an old and trusted worker who got people from his village, ensured them jobs, helped them settle in the city and provided money in times of crisis, and in return demanded money and gifts and came to have much power.

2. Q2. In the late eighteenth century, James Watt improved and patented the steam engine originally invented by whom?

   • A.Thomas Newcomen✓
   • B.Richard Arkwright
   • C.James Hargreaves
   • D.Matthew Boulton
   Solution

   A is correct because the NCERT text specifies: 'James Watt improved the steam engine produced by Newcomen and patented the new engine in 1781.' Mistake B created the cotton mill. Mistake C invented the spinning jenny. Mistake D was Watt's business partner who manufactured the improved engine.

3. Q3. The system of advances given by the East India Company to weavers meant that:

   • A.Weavers were free to sell to anyone
   • B.Weavers received loans/advances to buy raw material but then had to sell their cloth only to the gomastha and could not take it to other buyers✓
   • C.Weavers were paid high wages
   • D.Weavers owned their own factories
   Solution

   On accepting advances, weavers were obliged to hand over the cloth they produced to the gomastha; they could not take it to any other trader. As loans flowed in and the demand for fine textiles expanded, weavers took advances but lost the freedom to sell in the open market and often fell into debt.

4. Q4. What was the essential economic relationship between poor peasants in the English countryside and merchants during the proto-industrial era?

   • A.Peasants sold their plots of land directly to merchants and migrated to overseas colonies.
   • B.Peasants engaged in cottage manufacturing for merchants to supplement their shrinking agricultural earnings after common lands were enclosed.✓
   • C.Peasants worked as salaried security guards at the merchant guild headquarters in London.
   • D.Merchants forced peasants to abandon weaving and practice only sheep-shearing.
   Solution

   B is correct because the NCERT textbook explains: 'In the countryside poor peasants and artisans began working for merchants... Disappearing open fields and commons meant that cottagers and poor peasants... had to look for alternative sources of income. Many had tiny plots of land which could not provide work for all family members. So when merchants came around and offered advances to produce goods for them, peasant households readily agreed.' Mistakes A, C, and D misrepresent the proto-industrial agrarian dynamic.

5. Q5. In the pre-colonial era, the gross value of maritime trade passing through Surat was estimated at Rs 16 million in the late seventeenth century. By the 1740s, to what figure had this trade value collapsed?

   • A.Rs 10 million
   • B.Rs 3 million✓
   • C.Rs 8 million
   • D.Rs 500,000
   Solution

   B is correct because the NCERT text explicitly notes: 'In the last years of the seventeenth century, the gross value of trade that passed through Surat had been Rs 16 million. By the 1740s it had slumped to Rs 3 million.' Mistakes A, C, and D are incorrect numbers chosen by students guessing the magnitude of Surat's commercial decay.

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