In 1829, the great Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote: “Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it?.?.?.?the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery?.?.?.?the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches, and practices the greater art of adapting means to ends.”

He continued with a lament for older ways of doing and being: “On every hand, the artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster. The sailor furls his sail, and lays down his oar, and bids a strong unwearied servant?.?.?.?bear him through the waters.”

It is a measure of just how much speedier our age is that no one today will take the time to write or read such comparatively languorous prose. What is striking about Carlyle’s writing from today’s vantage point is how early in the industrial revolution he mounted a protest against it. By 1829, the steam engine was entering its -heyday, but the explosion of iron, steel, coal and oil that we associate with the industrial age was visible only on the horizon.