The British Industrial Revolution was characterized by the decline in the average level of skills of workers as technological progress was unskill-biased, and the stagnation of life expectancy despite economic development. In this paper, I rationalize these two features of British industrialization in a two-sector growth model in which the direction of technological progress is endogenous and public health investments are the result of profit-maximization by the capitalist class. I show that improvements in life expectancy can generate a switch from unskill- to skill-biased technological progress and a transition to a regime of sustained economic growth. However, unskill-biased technological progress initially reduces capitalists' incentives to undertake investments in public health measures and thereby delays the take-off. The theory is consistent with observations of a declining skill-premium, and simulations of the model provide a convincing account of the dynamics of the Industrial Revolution.