<P> Kerosene lighting was much more efficient and less expensive than vegetable oils, tallow and whale oil . Although town gas lighting was available in some cities, kerosene produced a brighter light until the invention of the gas mantle . Both were replaced by electricity for street lighting following the 1890s and for households during the 1920s . Gasoline was an unwanted byproduct of oil refining until automobiles were mass - produced after 1914, and gasoline shortages appeared during World War I . The invention of the Burton process for thermal cracking doubled the yield of gasoline, which helped alleviate the shortages . </P> <P> Synthetic dye was discovered by English chemist William Henry Perkin in 1856 . At the time, chemistry was still in a quite primitive state; it was still a difficult proposition to determine the arrangement of the elements in compounds and chemical industry was still in its infancy . Perkin's accidental discovery was that aniline could be partly transformed into a crude mixture which when extracted with alcohol produced a substance with an intense purple colour . He scaled up production of the new "mauveine", and commercialized it as the world's first synthetic dye . </P> <P> After the discovery of mauveine, many new aniline dyes appeared (some discovered by Perkin himself), and factories producing them were constructed across Europe . Towards the end of the century, Perkin and other British companies found their research and development efforts increasingly eclipsed by the German chemical industry which became world dominant by 1914 . </P> <P> This era saw the birth of the modern ship as disparate technological advances came together . </P>

Who was seen as the leaders in the industrial revolution