the age of commerce and industry
TRANSCRIPT
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Lecture 3: The Age of Commerce and Industry
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Introduction: Prometheus unbound?
Revisionist view of industrialization:
1) scale of technological change
2) population growth
3) growth of commerce
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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Persistence of artisan and craft production
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‘Boom’ regions in 18th/early 19th century
• Britain: Pennines, Black Country
• Continental Europe: Rhine and Meuse valleys, Belgium, Silesia, Northern Italy, Catalonia
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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