<P> According to one text the water - mill was first made in 555 A.D. by Belisarius, although according to another they were known to Pliny the Elder and Vitruvius in the first century B.C. By the time of the 4th century A.D. mills with a capacity to grind 3 tonnes of cereal an hour, a rate sufficient to meet the needs of 80,000 persons, were in use by the Roman Empire . </P> <P> The Venice Arsenal provides one of the first examples of a factory in the modern sense of the word . Founded in 1104 in Venice, Republic of Venice, several hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, it mass - produced ships on assembly lines using manufactured parts . The Venice Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day and, at its height, employed 16,000 people . </P> <P> One of the earliest factories was John Lombe's water - powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721 . By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at Warmley near Bristol . Raw material went in at one end, was smelted into brass and was turned into pans, pins, wire, and other goods . Housing was provided for workers on site . Josiah Wedgwood in Staffordshire and Matthew Boulton at his Soho Manufactory were other prominent early industrialists, who employed the factory system . </P> <P> The factory system began widespread use somewhat later when cotton spinning was mechanized . </P>

When was the first factory built in the industrial revolution
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