1 - The regional perspective

Summary

Disaggregated analyses of the industrial revolution in Britain are currently out of fashion. The influence of the ‘New Economic History’ on the growing macro-economics school has resulted in new calculations of the movement of aggregate variables: national income, industrial output, the rate of capital formation, the growth and composition of the labour force, living standards and demographic trends. Aggregate estimates, incorporating wide margins of error, have been accompanied by cross-national comparisons and by the formation of hypotheses about the causal relationships between different elements of change. Valuable though this work has been in suggesting a macro-framework and in speculating about national characteristics of cause and effect its perspective on industrial change and economic development is limited. Thus, aspects of economy and society which were innovative or unique to the period have been neglected. And the industrial revolution remains as inscrutable as ever.

This chapter aims to highlight the importance of the regional perspective in understanding the extent of fundamental economic and social change occurring between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. First, the limitations of the current aggregative, national income estimation approach are discussed followed by an assessment of causal analysis of demographic change at the national level. The regional approach is then outlined and justified as uniquely important for comprehending the economic and social history of the industrial revolution period. An agenda of issues ripe for study at the regional level is established which centres around the identification of regional dynamics and includes discussion of external economies, proto-industrialisation and critical mass.