The Age Of Commerce And Industry

Lecture 3: The Age of Commerce and Industry

Introduction: Prometheus unbound?

Revisionist view of industrialization:

1) scale of technological change

2) population growth

3) growth of commerce

1) The Age of Machinery

Britain’s reputation as first industrial nation rests on 3 factors:

i) timing

ii) technological innovation

iii) population growth

Does this accurately reflect what we now know about the 18th century economy?

No industrial take off in the 1780s

 Estimated rates of growth in Gross National Product for Britain, 1700-1870 (Nicholas Crafts)

Period National income per capita

1700-60 0.3

1760-1800 0.17

1800-1830 0.52

1830-1870 1.98

The age of factories and machinery?

William Blake ‘dark satanic mills’, Jerusalem (1804)

Traditional view =

• technological and mechanical innovation transformed economy

• craftsmanship replaced by unskilled labour

• Huge factories

Steam engine invented 1712, only 1200 in use in Britain 1800

Spinning jenny, spinning mule, powerloom, Jacquard loom = portable and operated by hand

Britain in 1841: only 10% of cotton mills more than a 100 workers

1871: average manufactory less than 10 employees

Big 18th century factories = state owned, arsenals, dockyards

Persistence of artisan and craft production

‘Boom’ regions in 18th/early 19th century

• Britain: Pennines, Black Country

• Continental Europe: Rhine and Meuse valleys, Belgium, Silesia, Northern Italy, Catalonia

2) Population Growth

• Expansion of European population and growth of major cities

• Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) fear of famine

• Findings of Cambridge Population Group for England:

i) more gradual rate of population growth over 18cy

ii) changes in ‘nuptiality’ responsible for population growth

iii) population growth increasingly took place in towns, not countryside

Modernization of agricultural sector

• Enclosure acts, crop rotation, improved seeds, reclamation of land

• Agricultural improvement societies – Arthur Young (1741-1820)

• Population grew because agriculture grew to feed them

3) Commerce and consumption

• Increasing emphasis on ‘demand’ side of 18th century economy (trade and consumption) rather than ‘supply’ (population growth, technology)

• New global economy: fastest growing cities = capitals but also ports:

Bordeaux, Marseilles, Nantes

• Trade in goods from China and India – re-exported to maritime colonies

New world of luxury goods

• Britain: tea consumption = 0.32 lb per head in 1730s by 1800 = 1.36lb

• End of century tea, sugar = staples of labouring classes

An industrious revolution?

• Jan de Vries: desire for luxury goods changes working patterns and household economics

• Hans-Joachim Voth – study of work time in England.

London: days worked increased from 208 in 1750 to 306 in 1800

Conclusion: The Age of Commerce

1) Evolution of artisan and craft economies, punctuated by boom regions

2) Population change caused by a decline in the age at which people married and decision to have larger families

3) Growth of demand for consumer goods