Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:00:15.821Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Slavery and the Revolution in Cotton Textile Production in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Joseph E. Inikori
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

From the point of view of the preindustrial world, the development of the English cotton textile industry in the eighteenth century was truly revolutionary. The industry was established early in the century as a peasant craft (section 2; note 2), and by 1850 it had been almost completely transformed in terms of the organization and technology of production. Of the total work force of 374,000 employed in the industry in 1850, only 43,000 (approximately 11.5 percent of the total) were employed outside the factory system of organization. In terms of technology, the industry was virtually mechanized by this time: there were 20,977,000 spindles and 250,000 power looms in the industry in 1850. What is more, steam had become the dominant form of power used in the industry—71,000 horsepower supplied by steam as opposed to 11,000 supplied by water (Mitchell, 1962: 185, 187). Value added in the industry by this time exceeded by about 50 percent that in the woolen textile industry, the dominant industry in England for over four centuries. This rate of development was something that had never been experienced in any industry in the preindustrial world. Indeed, the Industrial Revolution in England, in the strict sense of the phrase, is little more than a revolution in eighteenth-century cotton textile production.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , Winter 1989 , pp. 343 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1989 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmad, Jaleel (1978) Import Substitution, Trade and Development. Greenwich, CT: JAI.Google Scholar
Baer, Werner, and Maneschi, Andrea (1971) “Import substitution, stagnation and structural change: An interpretation of the Brazilian case.” Journal of Developing Areas 5: 177–192.Google Scholar
Balassa, Bela (1981) The Process of Industrial Development and Alternative Development Strategies. Princeton: Princeton University, Department of Economics, International Finance Section.Google Scholar
Bruton, Henry J. (1970) “The import substitution strategy of economic development: A survey.” Pakistan Development Review 10: 123–146.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, K. N. (1965) The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-Stock Company 1600-1640. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Chenery, Hollis B. (1960) “Patterns of industrial growth.” American Economic Review 50: 624–654.Google Scholar
Coleman, D. C. (1973) “Textile growth,” in Harte, N. B. and Ponting, K. G. (eds.) Textile History and Economic History: Essays in Honour of Miss Julia de Lacy Mann. Manchester: Manchester University Press: 1–21.Google Scholar
Davis, Ralph (1969a) “English foreign trade, 1660-1700,” in Minchinton, W. E. (ed.) The Growth of English Overseas Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Methuen: 78–98.Google Scholar
Davis, Ralph (1969b) “English foreign trade, 1700-1774,” in Minchinton, W. E. (ed.) The Growth of English Overseas Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Methuen: 99–120.Google Scholar
Deane, Phyllis, and Cole, W. A. (1962) British Economic Growth, 1688-1959: Trends and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ellison, Thomas (1968 [1886]) The Cotton Trade of Great Britain. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Felix, David (1968) “The dilemma of import substitution—Argentina,” in Papanek, Gustav F. (ed.) Development Policy—Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 55–91.Google Scholar
Hall, A. Rupert (1974) “What did the Industrial Revolution in Britain owe to science?” in McKendrick, Neil (ed.) Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in Honour of J. H. Plumb. London: Europa Publications: 129–151.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. (1958) The Strategy of Economic Development. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. (1968) “The political economy of import-substituting industrialization in Latin America.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 82: 1–32.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. A. (1926 [1894]) The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production. London: Walter Scott.Google Scholar
House of Commons Journals 16 (1708-11).Google Scholar
House of Commons Journals 49 (1794) Petition of the manufacturers of the Town of Manchester to the House of Commons: 304.Google Scholar
House of Commons Reports 2 (1738-65).Google Scholar
Inikori, Joseph E. (1987) “Slavery and the development of industrial capitalism in England.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 17: 771–793.Google Scholar
John, A. H. (1969) “Aspects of English economic growth in the first half of the eighteenth century,” in Minchinton, W. E. (ed.) The Growth of English Overseas Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. London: Methuen: 165–183.Google Scholar
Krishna, Bal (1924) Commercial Relations between India and England (1601 to 1757). London: G. Routledge.Google Scholar
Kraeger, Anne O. (1975) The Benefits and Costs of Import Substitution in India: A Microeconomic Study. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. (1962) Abstract of British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel (1977) “Demand vs. supply in the industrial revolution.” Journal of Economic History 37: 981–1008.Google Scholar
Morawetz, David (1974) “Employment implications of industrialization in developing countries: A survey.” Economic Journal 84: 491–542.Google Scholar
Musson, A. E. [ed.] (1972) Science, Technology and Economic Growth in the Eighteenth Century. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO), United Kingdom. Customs 3 and 17, Ledgers of Imports and Exports of Great Britain.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1750) Thomas Norris and Co. to Committee of the English Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, 25 February. T. 70/1516.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1751a) Thomas Norris to William Hollier (secretary to the African Company), Chorley, 7 May. T. 70/1516.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1751b) Thomas Melvil to Committee, Cape Coast Castle, 23 July. T. 70/1520.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1753) Thomas Melvil to Committee, Cape Coast Castle, 24 April. T. 70/1520.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1754) Thomas Melvil to Committee, 10 August. T. 70/1523.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1765) Memorial of the Merchants of Liverpool Trading to Africa to the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury, 16 March. T. 1/447/LA17.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1785) Samuel Taylor to James Rogers and Co., Manchester, 29 April. C. 107/8.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1788a) Evidence Taken before the Committee of Privy Council Appointed by an Order in Council, 11 February 1788, to Consider the State of the African Trade; Evidence of Samuel Taylor, 6 March. BT. 6/12.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1788b) Evidence Taken before the Committee of Privy Council Appointed by an Order in Council, 11 February 1788, to Consider the State of the African Trade; Evidence of Samuel Taylor, 8 March: 309-317. BT. 6/9.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1789) Samuel Rawlinson to James Rogers and Co., Manchester, 26 November. C. 107/9.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1790a) Captain William Woodville to James Rogers, Manchester, 29 January. C. 107/13.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1790b) William Rawlinson to James Rogers and Co., Manchester, 2 April. C. 107/9.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1790c) Joseph Caton to James Rogers, Liverpool, 2 December. C. 107/13.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1791) Robinson and Heywood to James Rogers and Co., Manchester, 13 May. C. 107/8.Google Scholar
Public Record Office (PRO) (1792) William Green to James Rogers and Co., Manchester, 23 Novem. C. 107/10.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, E. B. (1960) English Overseas Trade Statistics 1697-1808. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, P. J. (1926) Mercantilism and the East India Trade: An Early Phase of the Protection v. Free Trade Controversy. London: P. S. King.Google Scholar
Wadsworth, A. P., and Mann, J. de L. (1931) The Cotton Trade and Industrial Lancashire. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar