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Damming the Flood: British Government Efforts to Check the Outflow of Technicians and Machinery, 1780–1843*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

David J. Jeremy
David J. Jeremy
Affiliation:
Head of History, Cecil Jones High School, Southend–on–Sea, England
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Abstract

In the waning decades of the age of mercantilism, Great Britain intensified her efforts to keep at home the new industrial technology—technicians and machines—that the inventiveness of her people had produced. From his researches in the records of the Board of Trade, which played a major role in coordinating these efforts, Mr. Jeremy shows that as time wore on the policy of prohibiting emigration and exports became more and more internally contradictory and incapable of enforcement despite great ingenuity on the part of those responsible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , Spring 1977 , pp. 1 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

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References

1 The major exception is Musson, A. E., “The ‘Manchester School’ and Exportation of Machinery,” Business History, XIV (January, 1972), 17–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which looks at the question from a significant local vantage point.

2 The textile-related prohibitory statutes were 7 & 8 Wm. 3, c. 20 (1695); 5 Geo. 1, c. 27 (1718); 23 Geo. 2, c. 13 (1749); 14 Geo. 3, c. 71 (1774); 21 Geo. 3, o. 37 (1781); 22 Geo. 3, c. 60 (1782); Ireland 25 Geo. 3, c. 17 (1785); 26 Geo. 3, c. 76 (1786), which repealed clauses in the 1774 and 1781 statutes regarding cheap wood cards.

The metal trades were covered by 25 Geo. 3, c. 67 (1785) and 26 Geo. 3, c. 89 (1786) as well as the 1718 Act. The act 26 Geo. 3, c. 89 included the prohibitions on the export of paper-making, glass blowing and cutting, pottery and leather-working equipment. The act 39 Geo. 3, c. 56 (1799) placed the seducing of colliers to emigrate on the same footing as the seducing of manufacturers.

3 Brown, Lucy, The Board of Trade and the Free Trade Movement, 1830-1842 (Oxford, 1958), 20–21Google Scholar.

4 This article is based on the following collections in the Public Record Office: P.C.I (Privy Council papers, unbound); P.C.2 (Privy Council Minutes), vols. 128-226 (1782-1844); B.T.1 (Board of Trade In-Letters), letters from the period 1791-1830s; B.T.5 (Board of Trade Minutes), vols. 1-45 (1784-1838); B.T.6 (Board of Trade Miscellanea), vols. 151 and 152 (Machinery Books, 1825-1843). I should like to thank the staff of the North Room and the Rolls Room at the P.R.O. for their cooperation in locating and producing documents.

5 On the emigration of industrial workers to Europe, see Henderson, W. O., Britain and Industrial Europe, 1750-1870 (3rd ed., Leicester, 1972)Google Scholar. On the emigration of industrial workers to the United States, see Campbell, Mildred, “English Emigration on the Eve of the American Revolution,” American Historical Review, LXI (October, 1955), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heaton, Herbert, “The Industrial Immigrant in the United States, 1783-1812,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CV (1951), 519–527Google Scholar; Jeremy, David J., “British Textile Technology Transmission to the United States: the Philadelphia Region Experience, 1770-1820,” Business History Review, XLVII (Spring, 1973), 24–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Erickson, Charlotte, Invisible Immigrants. The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth Century America (Coral Gables, Fla., 1972), 229–389Google Scholar. Anthony F. C. Wallace and David J. Jeremy, “William Pollard and the Arkwright Patents,’ William and Mary Quarterly, forthcoming.

6 Jones, Maldwyn A., “Ulster Emigration, 1783-1815,” in Green, E. R. R., ed., Essays in Scotch-Irish History (London, 1969), 46–68Google Scholar.

7 My analysis of U.S., Marshals’ Returns of Enemy Aliens, War of 1812 Papers, Record Groups 45 and 59, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

8 Neel, Joanne L., Phineas Bond. A Study in Anglo-American Relations. 1786-1812 (Philadelphia, 1968), 75–76, 129, 149, 151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 B.T. 5/7, p. 310; 8, pp. 102-104.

10 B.T. 5/13, pp. 62-65; 15, p. 292; 21, p. 117.

11 B.T. 5/17, p. 277; 26, p. 419; 27, p. 337; 30, p. 406; 31, p. 436. For this Manchester society, precursor of the Chamber of Commerce, see Redford, Arthur, ed., Manchester Merchants and Foreign Trade, 1794-1858 (Manchester, 1934), 67–68Google Scholar.

12 B.T. 5/19, p. 64; 21, pp. 70, 364. B.T. 1/76, ff. 29-38.

13 P.C. 2/137, pp. 468-470. B.T. 1/44, f. 176; 45, f. 292.

14 P.C. 2/169, p. 629; 170, pp. 429, 674. B.T. 5/25, p. 337; 26, p. 140.

15 B.T. 5/10, pp. 435-437. P.C. 2/160, p. 384; 170, pp. 543-544.

16 P.C. 2/164, pp. 128, 177; 175, p. 67.

17 P.C. 2/205 pp. 420-421. B.T. 1/119, 8. 8-10. B.T. 5/26, p. 140.

18 B.T. 5/13, pp. 114-115.

19 B.T. 5/26, p. 261. B.T. 1/120, ff. 90-95.

20 G.B. Part. Papers (Commons), 1824 (51), V, “Six Reports from the Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery,” 50.

21 Few cases of artisans who perjured themselves are documented. One of them, Samuel Mearbeck, later recalled his questioning by Boston Customs officers who wondered how he had managed to escape from England with his cutlery tools: “They asked how did I to get away from England if I did not take a false oath. I told them what Butler says: ‘He that imposes an oath makes it, not he who for convenience takes it.’ They laughed at me and said that would do and desired me to tell it them again and they wrote it down.”

Samuel Mearbeck to his mother, from Boston, Mass., January 1, 1817, Mearbeck Letters, typescript copies made from those in Sheffield Central Reference Library and kindly brought to my notice by Dr. Charlotte Erickson. The quotation is from Samuel Butler's seventeenth-century satirical poem, Hudibras.

23 P.C. 2/137, pp. 468-470; 142, pp. 361-362. P.C. 1/25, A48 and A49. Neel, Phineas Bond, 75, 149.

24 For passport systems, see Redford, Arthur, Labour Migration in England, 1800-1850 (2nd ed. Manchester, 1964), 87–88Google Scholar. B.T. 1/76, ff. 33-40. B.T. 5/22, p. 276.

25 See P.C. 2/159, p. 254; 180, pp. 539-540 and B.T. 5/19, pp. 55-56 for prosecutions. G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1824 (51), V, 569.

26 MacDonagh, Oliver, A Pattern of Government Growth. The Passenger Acts and Their Enforcement, 1800-1860 (London, 1961), 57–58Google Scholar. This may be compared with Jones, “Ulster Emigration,” 57-58 and Neel, Phineas Bond, 87, 149-150.

27 Redford, Labour Migration pp. 81-84. B.T. 5/17, p. 277; 26, p. 419; 27, p. 329. B.T. 1/44. f. 176.

28 B.T. 5/21, pp. 221, 275, 364.

29 Henderson, Britain and Industrial Europe, 30-31; G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1841 (201), VII, “First Report from the Select Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Operation of the Existing Laws Affecting the Export of Machinery,” 64. B.T. 5/10, pp. 427-429. B.T. 1/15, 8. 120-126.

30 B.T. 5/13, pp. 62-65; 15, pp. 292-293, 322. G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons) 1824 (51), V, 581.

31 P.C. 2/137, pp. 468-470. Barnby, H. G., The Prisoners of Algiers. An Account of the Forgotten American-Algerian War, 1785-1797 (London, 1966), 103–106Google Scholar. La Force, J. Clayburn, “Technological Diffusion in the 18th Century: the Spanish Textile Industry,” Technology and Culture, V (Summer, 1964), 330.Google Scholar

32 P.C. 2/196, pp. 36-38.

33 Jeremy, David J., ed., Henry Wansey and His American Journal, 1794 (Philadelphia, 1970)Google Scholar, passim; idem, “British Textile Technology Transmission to the United States,” 24-52. Henderson, Britain and Industrial Europe, passim. G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1824 (51), V, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 13, 36, for example.

34 B.T. 5/11 pp. 367-368; 17, pp. 277, 302-303.

35 B.T. 5/18, pp. 138, 159, 160, 205; 21, pp. 70-71, 364; 25, p. 153; 28, p. 136.

36 B.T. 1/169, bundle 26. G.B. Parl. Papers (Commons), 1824 (51), V, 49-59. Redford, ed., Manchester Merchants, 7, 67-68. G.B., Parl, Papers (Commons), 1806 (268), III, “Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Committee Appointed to Consider the State of the Woollen Manufacture,” 4-5; Mann, Julia de L., The Cloth Industry in the West of England from 1640 to 1880 (Oxford, 1971), 147.Google Scholar

37 P.C. 2/130, p. 313; 184, p. 31; 218 (for Oct. 5, 1811). B.T. 5/15, p. 282; 28, p. 143; 32, pp. 152, 342.

38 The sources for the preceding two paragraphs are P.C. 2/147, pp. 572-573; 148, pp. 432-433; 153, pp. 529, 539; 158, p. 112; 170, pp. 70-71; 189, p. 205. B.T. 5/11 pp. 210-212; 22, p. 449; 25, p. 378; 26, pp. 10, 260; 29, p. 80; 32, p. 15; 33, p. 43.

39 B.T. 5/10, pp. 435-438; 11, pp. 3-7; 14, p. 165; 25, p. 25. 39 Geo. 3, c. 96 (1799).

40 P.C. 2/131, p. 528; 161, p. 112; 167, p. 178; 169, p. 629; 170, pp. 70-71; 173, p. 233; 174, p. 252; 205, pp. 420-121. B.T. 5/24, p. 155; 25, pp. 24-25, 337.

41 B.T. 5/29, p. 304; 32, pp. 2, 15, 345-346; 33, pp. 24-25, 30.

42 Jeremy, “British Textile Technology Transmission to the United States,” 37-42.

43 For the operation of the early-nineteenth-century patent system, see G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1829 (332), III, “Reports from the Select Committee on the Law Relative to Patents for Invention.” Censorship of technical publications and the role of the British patent system in the process of technology transfer will be considered in more detail in my forth-coming doctoral thesis.

44 B.T. 5/2, pp. 290, 296, 300-305. P.C. 2/130, pp. 278, 309-314.

45 B.T. 5/17, p. 277; 19, p. 64; 26, p. 419; 27, p. 337. P.C. 2/202, p. 3. English Customs Board, General Orders or Letters, vol. 2 (1814-1823), 991-992.

46 Edinburgh Review 39 (1823-1824), no. 78 (January, 1824), 315–345.Google Scholar For McCulloch's authorship, see Wallas, Graham, The Life of Francis Place, 1771-1854 (4th ed., London, 1925), 208.Google Scholar

47 Hansard 2nd ser. 10, cols. 141-151 (February 12, 1824); Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Cannan, Edwin, ed. (New York, 1937), 121Google Scholar.

48 G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1824 (51), V. Unless otherwise stated, this section is based on these six reports on the export of machinery, emigration of artisans and on trades unions; and on the 1825 report on the export of machinery, G.B., Parl. Tapers (Commons), 1825 (504). Musson, “‘Manchester School’,” p. 24. 5 Geo. 4, c. 97 (1824).

49 Hansard 2nd ser. 15, cols. 908-911 (May 5, 1826), 1118-1122 (May 11, 1826); 16, cols. 291-298 (December 6, 1826).

50 Hansard 2nd ser. 12, col. 652 (February 24, 1825); Smith, Wealth of Nations, 625; Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1963), Chap. 4.Google Scholar

51 See sources in note 49.

52 Besides the evidence in the 1824 (p. 17 for Galloway's comment) and 1825 reports, see Rolt, L. T. C., Tools for the Job. A Short History of Machine Tools (London, 1965), 83–121Google Scholar, for a general survey of the machine tool revolution. Musson, A. E. and Robinson, Eric, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, 1969), 459–509Google Scholar, deal with Manchester developments. Also Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, 245-246.

53 Hansard 2nd ser. 12, col. 652 (February 24, 1825); 13, cols. 1136-1138 (June 14, 1825). G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1841 (201), VII, “First Report from Select Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Operation of the Existing Laws Affecting the Exportation of Machinery,” 8. Unless otherwise stated, the material in the remainder of this paper derives from this report and from its companion, the Second Report on the Exportation of Machinery, Parl. Papers (Commons), 1841 (400), VII. Precise citations from these major sources are provided only for verbatim quotations.

54 Hansard 2nd ser. 16, col. 293 (December 6, 1826).

55 Musson, “‘Manchester School’,” 25-26.

56 Customs Board, General Orders, 1838 vol., for October 24, 1838. G.B., Parl. Papers (Commons), 1841 (201), VII, 4.

57 B.T. 6/151, passim.

58 Ibid. B.T. 5/34, pp. 48, 417. B.T. 1/254, no. 33.

59 B.T. 5/35, p. 155. Italics added.

60 B.T. 5/36, pp. 78-80.

61 B.T. 5/41, pp. 86, 109.

62 B.T. 5/38, p. 179; 39, pp. 319-320; 42, pp. 189, 357; 43, p. 440.

63 B.T. 5/41, p. 489.

64 B.T. 6/151, passim.

65 B.T. 5/43, pp. 103-104, 151.

66 B.T. 5/39, p. 272.

* The author has detailed data on destinations, fibers, and processing stages for the machinery involved in these applications, which he will be glad to supply on request.

67 B.T. 6/151, passim.

68 B.T. 5/36, pp. 133-135; 37, p. 262; 41, p. 554. These petitions from Birmingham and Manchester were evidently inspired by Manchester Chamber of Commerce. See Musson, “‘Manchester School’,” 36-37.

69 B.T. 5/42, p. 306 to B.T. 5/43, p. 65 passim.

70 B.T. 5/41, pp. 320, 493, 498, 518; 42, p. 383.

71 Customs House Archives, Customs 37/56, ‘Seizures, 1825-1856,” ff. 131-152. I wish to thank the staff of H.M. Customs Library and Archives for facilitating my work with their records, which were inspected by kind permission of H.M. Commissioners of Customs & Excise.

72 See A.J.D., “Historical Notes on the Coastguard Service” (London, H.M.S.O., 1907), 23–24Google Scholar.

73 B.T. 5/35, p. 282; 41, pp. 82, 417; 42, p. 273.

74 Musson, “‘Manchester School’,” 36.

75 Second Report, 1841, p. 107 (see note 53); for Customs seizures see note 71.

76 Matthews, R. C. O., A Study in Trade Cycle History: Economic Fluctuations in Great Britain, 1833-1842 (Cambridge, 1954), 127–151.Google Scholar

77 McCord, Norman, The Anti-Corn Law League, 1838-1846 (2nd ed. London, 1968), 39Google Scholar. See also Musson, “‘Manchester School’,” for diminution of the activities of Manchester Chamber of Commerce in the 1830s.

78 Second Report, 1841, p. 52 (see note 53).

79 Musson, “‘Manchester School’,” p. 41 and Table 1. Author's data based on London directories.

80 Hansard 3rd ser. 56, cols. 670-692 (February 16, 1841).

81 See note 53.

82 B.T. 6/15 1 and 152 passim; B.T. 5/36, p. 246.

83 Hansard 3rd ser. 70, col. 830 (July 10, 1843).

84 Hansard 3rd ser. 71, cols., 493-517 (August 10, 1843), cols. 545-547 (August 11, 1843); 6&7 Victoria, c. 84.

85 See Glass, David, Numbering the People: the Eighteenth—Century Population Controversy and the Development of Census and Vital Statistics in Britain (Farnborough, Hants, 1973), 19–20Google Scholar. I am obliged to Dr. Charlotte Erickson for this reference.