In 1760 (generally regarded as the very beginning of the industrial revolution), Britain imported around 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton. In 1787 that had risen to 22 million pounds and by 1837 to 366 million pounds. At the same time, the price of yarn had fallen to about one-twentieth of what it had been and almost all of the workers in the cotton industry, save for the hand-loom weavers, worked in mills under factory conditions.
