Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

===Protestant work ethic===
{{Main|Protestant work ethic}}
Another theory is that the British advance was due to the presence of an [[entrepreneur]]ial class which believed in progress, technology and hard work.<ref name="Capital and Innovation: How Britain Became the First Industrial Nation"/> The existence of this class is often linked to the [[Protestant work ethic]] (see [[Max Weber]]) and the particular status of the [[Baptists]] and the dissenting Protestant sects, such as the [[Religious Society of Friends|Quakers]] and [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]] that had flourished with the [[English Civil War]]. Reinforcement of confidence in the rule of law, which followed establishment of the prototype of constitutional monarchy in Britain in the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1688, and the emergence of a stable financial market there based on the management of the [[Government debt|national debt]] by the [[Bank of England]], contributed to the capacity for, and interest in, private financial investment in industrial ventures.<ref>Robert Green, ed., ''The Weber Thesis Controversy'' (D.C. Heath, 1973)</ref>

[[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] found themselves barred or discouraged from almost all public offices, as well as education at England's [[Oxbridge|only two universities]] at the time (although dissenters were still free to study at Scotland's [[Ancient universities of Scotland|four universities]]). When the restoration of the monarchy took place and membership in the official [[Anglican Communion|Anglican Church]] became mandatory due to the [[Test Act]], they thereupon became active in banking, manufacturing and education. The [[Unitarianism|Unitarians]], in particular, were very involved in education, by running Dissenting Academies, where, in contrast to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and schools such as Eton and Harrow, much attention was given to mathematics and the sciences – areas of scholarship vital to the development of manufacturing technologies.

Historians sometimes consider this social factor to be extremely important, along with the nature of the national economies involved. While members of these sects were excluded from certain circles of the government, they were considered fellow Protestants, to a limited extent, by many in the [[middle class]], such as traditional financiers or other businessmen. Given this relative tolerance and the supply of capital, the natural outlet for the more enterprising members of these sects would be to seek new opportunities in the technologies created in the wake of the scientific revolution of the 17th century.