IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v61y2008i3p625-650.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Scottish, Irish, and imperial connections: Parliament, the three kingdoms, and the mechanization of cotton spinning in eighteenth‐century Britain1

Author

Listed:
  • TREVOR GRIFFITHS
  • PHILIP HUNT
  • PATRICK O’BRIEN

Abstract

This paper offers a new perspective on the emergence of machinery in the cotton spinning trade during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. It does so by examining the interplay between economic, political, and national interests within the early Hanoverian state. Changes in trading relationships between textile producers across the three kingdoms of England/Wales, Ireland, and Scotland created escalating supply‐side problems, which, by the 1760s, would precipitate a quest for solutions based on new technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Trevor Griffiths & Philip Hunt & Patrick O’Brien, 2008. "Scottish, Irish, and imperial connections: Parliament, the three kingdoms, and the mechanization of cotton spinning in eighteenth‐century Britain1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 61(3), pages 625-650, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:61:y:2008:i:3:p:625-650
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00414.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00414.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00414.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Temin, Peter, 1997. "Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 57(1), pages 63-82, March.
    2. C. Knick Harley, 1998. "Cotton Textile Prices and the Industrial Revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 51(1), pages 49-83, February.
    3. Williamson, Oliver E., 1980. "The organization of work a comparative institutional assessment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 5-38, March.
    4. Maxine Berg, 2002. "From imitation to invention: creating commodities in eighteenth-century Britain[I am grate]," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 55(1), pages 1-30, February.
    5. Landes, David S., 1986. "What Do Bosses Really Do?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 585-623, September.
    6. Daunton, M. J., 1995. "Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain 1700-1850," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198222811.
    7. Griffiths, Trevor & Hunt, Philip A. & O'Brien, Patrick K., 1992. "Inventive Activity in the British Textile Industry, 1700–1800," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 881-906, December.
    8. N. F. R. Crafts & C. K. Harley, 1992. "Output growth and the British industrial revolution: a restatement of the Crafts-Harley view," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 45(4), pages 703-730, November.
    9. Maxine Berg & Pat Hudson, 1992. "Rehabilitating the industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 45(1), pages 24-50, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The Calico Acts: Was British cotton made possible by infant industry protection from Indian competition?
      by pseudoerasmus in Pseudoerasmus on 2017-01-05 11:01:14

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gavin Wright, 2020. "Slavery and Anglo‐American capitalism revisited," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(2), pages 353-383, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Harley, C. Knick, 2012. "Was technological change in the early Industrial Revolution Schumpeterian? Evidence of cotton textile profitability," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 516-527.
    2. Antras, Pol & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2003. "Factor prices and productivity growth during the British industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 52-77, January.
    3. Réka Juhász & Mara P. Squicciarini & Nico Voigtländer, 2020. "Technology Adoption and Productivity Growth: Evidence from Industrialization in France," NBER Working Papers 27503, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Feldman, Naomi E. & van der Beek, Karine, 2016. "Skill choice and skill complementarity in eighteenth century England," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 94-113.
    5. Greasley, David & Oxley, Les, 2000. "British Industrialization, 1815-1860: A Disaggregate Time-Series Perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 98-119, January.
    6. Stephen Broadberry & Bishnupriya Gupta, 2009. "Lancashire, India, and shifting competitive advantage in cotton textiles, 1700–1850: the neglected role of factor prices1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(2), pages 279-305, May.
    7. Robert C. Allen, 2005. "Capital Accumulation, Technological Change, and the Distribution of Income during the British Industrial Revolution," Economics Series Working Papers 239, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. B. Zorina Khan, 2017. "Prestige and Profit: The Royal Society of Arts and Incentives for Innovation, 1750-1850," NBER Working Papers 23042, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Stokey, Nancy L., 2001. "A quantitative model of the British industrial revolution, 1780-1850," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 55-109, December.
    10. Mohajan, Haradhan, 2019. "The First Industrial Revolution: Creation of a New Global Human Era," MPRA Paper 96644, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Jul 2019.
    11. David Card & John DiNardo, 2002. "Technology and U.S. wage inequality: a brief look," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 87(Q3), pages 45-62.
    12. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2002. "From Malthus to Ohlin: Trade, Growth and Distribution Since 1500," NBER Working Papers 8955, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kenneth Carlaw & Les Oxley & Paul Walker & David Thorns & Michael Nuth, 2006. "Beyond The Hype: Intellectual Property And The Knowledge Society/Knowledge Economy," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 633-690, September.
    14. Schwerin, Joachim & Werker, Claudia, 2003. "Learning innovation policy based on historical experience," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 385-404, December.
    15. Ravshonbek Otojanov & Roger Fouquet & Brigitte Granville, 2023. "Factor prices and induced technical change in the industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 599-623, May.
    16. C. Knick Harley, 2013. "British and European Industrialization," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _111, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Gregory Clark, 2006. "What made Britannia great? Did the Industrial Revolution make Britain a World Power?," Working Papers 618, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    18. Allen, Robert C., 2009. "Engels' pause: Technical change, capital accumulation, and inequality in the british industrial revolution," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 418-435, October.
    19. N. F. R. Crafts, 1997. "Some Dimensions of the ‘Quality of Life’ During the British Industrial Revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 50(4), pages 617-639, November.
    20. C. Knick Harley, 2010. "Prices and Profits in Cotton Textiles During the Industrial Revolution," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _081, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:61:y:2008:i:3:p:625-650. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.