The thing most historians agree on is coal.

If we ask someone like Robert Marks—who despite certain professional shortcomings in my own opinion—the short answer comes down to coal. If we look at it in a larger sense, however, there may have been a few more root causes which led to Britain's industrialization. In his book Origins of the Modern World, he lays out his argument that with massive amounts of dirt-cheap raw goods coming out of the major powers like India and China—to which you referred in your question—and that the colonies in the New World being used as a "peculiar periphery" or a captive market for new goods, massive economic growth spurred. And with the discovery of the use of coal, widespread industrialization was able to spur within the country (Marks, 98–103).

Another prominent historian—James Burke—produced in an episode of his television series The Day the Universe Changed titled Credit Where it's Due another possible explanation for British industrialization happening sooner than other places. He focused largely on examining the relationship between the New World colonies and England. Seeing the New World colonies as being essentially a wealth machine in producing raw materials and massive piles of wealth which were brought back to England, he made the argument that the new money spurred new investments in England, especially among the Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants) who naturally tended toward hard work and industrial work in the English countryside. With the advent of coal along with the move toward investing, new technologies—such as the initial mass industrializing coal-powered machines—led to the Industrial Revolution.

I believe that the best case comes when you look at how the two compliment each other. Everything comes down to the advents of coal and new piles of wealth in England. The relationship between England and the New World colonies as well as with India and China as they produced raw goods which new technologies from coal and investments being made to continue allowing growth in the country—as encouraged in the market-based philosophies of Capitalism from the Dutch credit system and philosophers such as Thomas Paine and Adam Smith in England—led to the Industrial Revolution occurring as a conjuncture in England largely due to a few circumstances (natural resources, global trade connections, cheap raw goods in colonial areas) that hadn't come together in China or India.

I've done a bit of reading and watched a few documentaries but there never seems to be a clear answer. In my opinion countries like India and China were in a far better position to Industrialise.

The simple reason for this is that there is no clear answer. Or rather, there are a host of different factors, and identifying which were essential, which weren't is an incredibly difficult task. Then there's the fact that there are different theoretical frameworks for answering the question - a marxist historian would take a different view to a liberal economist.

My economic history is fairly rusty, so I can't give a properly argued post, just a list of factors.

• A relatively high degree of per capita income. For example, England in 1800 is estimated to have had a per capita GDP of $2,091 (in 1990 dollars). France in 1820 was $1,135. (Madison Project figures.) That means wealth for both investment and wealth for consumption.

• A relatively trade-oriented outlook in society, politics and philosophy.

• A relatively flexible social system, with farmers less tied to the land and giving merchants and industrialists some ability to climb socially and hold political power.

• A relatively strong central government, providing a good degree of political stability.

• Enclosure and the 'agricultural revolution' both increasing land productivity and pushing people off the land to create an industrial workforce (adding to an already relatively high level of urbanisation).

• Relatively easy domestic transport, both by boat and by land, with few internal barriers. A substantial, dense population as a domestic market.

• A developed financial system able to mobilise investment for industrialisation.

• A degree of specialisation in cloth, a good which lent itself to mechanised processing. Also considerable *pre-*industrial manufacturing development, particularly in making cloth.

• Good coal and iron deposits located close to one-another. Also a relative lack of wood, promoting a shift to coal.

• A large merchant marine for transporting goods, and well established trade networks, with strategic outposts, etc..

• The military capability to protect shipping and enforce (or exploit) commercial rights.

• A colonial (and later neocolonial) market that was unable to shut out cheap imports or industrialise itself.

• An stimulus for industrial growth and innovation from the Napoleonic Wars.

I don't know enough about India to give a thorough answer as to why it didn't industrialise. It's hard to talk about "India" as a single unit in the same way as the UK, or even China - you might be better asking why individual areas didn't industrialise (which actually is a pattern of development you later see in China).

I can talk about China with a little bit more confidence. The easiest way is to compare to some of the points listed above. Bear in mind that China is a very big place, and you can probably find exceptions to all of these points.

• China's per capita GDP in 1820 was around $600 (note that this is a massively rough estimate - even estimates of China's population vary by something like a third).

• Chinese society and philosophy generally looked down on trade and industry, valuing farming, academia and bureaucracy.

• The Chinese social system was less flexible, with peasants more tied to the land, and a structured, route into the governing bureaucracy. (Perhaps ironically, something that Britain later copied.)

• A central government - or perhaps a set of regional governments - under pressure from internal and external forces. Both pressures became stronger as the 19th century went on, for example with the opium trade, unequal treaties and the devastating Taiping Rebellion.

• China (at least in its agricultural heartlands) had high agricultural productivity, but low productivity per head. There's a theory known as "involution" whereby (if I remember it rightly) Chinese peasants eked out marginal gains by putting in ever more labour, without ever either generating a surplus to invest or being completely forced off the land (to become a potential urban workforce).

• Between the availability of high quality goods like silks and cheap handicraft goods, there was limited demand for industrial products. You can see this in the fact that European manufacturers struggled to make any impact in the Chinese market - the only good China had a really reliable demand for was opium.

I can dig out some sources if necessary but I'll have to go through my old degree notes. There must be some good primers on this subject available but I can't recommend any.