What is meant by proto-industrialisation? State any two economic effects of the Industrial Revolution.

(a) Proto-industrialisation means the existence of industries before the factory system. This was the early phase of industrialisation in Europe and England when there was large-scale industrial production for an international market.
(b) Two functions of guilds:
(i) Guilds were associations of producers that trained crafts people.
(ii) They maintained control over production.
(iii) They regulated competition and prices and restricted the entry of people into the trade.
(c) Proto-industrialisation was successful in the countryside in England due to the following reasons:
(i) The peasants had been forced out of village commons due to enclosure movement.
(ii) They now looked for alternative sources of income. When merchants offered advances to produce goods for them peasant households readily agreed. They could continue to cultivate their small plots and supplement their shrinking income from cultivation.
(d) Two economic effects of Industrial Revolution were as given below:
(i) It led to the expansion of trade and commerce.
(ii) It led to the development of factory system which resulted in large-scale production.
(e) The features of proto-industrialisation were as mentioned below:
(l) It was a decentralised system of production.
(ii) Control of production was in the hand of merchants.
(iii) Goods were produced by a vast number of producers working in their family farms.
(iv) Whole of the family was involved.
(v) Each merchant controlled hundred of workers.
(vi) By working for the merchants, workers could remain in the countryside and continue to cultivate their small plots.