Notes on “Britain in 1750” from Eric Hobsbawm’s Industry and Empire (1968)

1. Britain in 1750

By 1750 England had undergone two hundred and fifty years of economic development. The economy was dominated by the enormous size of London with a population of 750,000-- the largest city in Christendom, twice the size of Paris. London was big but not beautiful. No other city in England had 50,000 people although the port cities Liverpool, Bristol, and Glasgow were busy and growing, trading in colonial products: sugar, tea, tobacco, cotton and slaves.

By 1750 England had developed a monetary and market economy on a national scale. She was truly a nation of shopkeepers: producers and consumers with the greatest of European cities as its engine. The growth of a market economy had transformed the peasantry by undermining local self-sufficiency and encouraging cash sales of available imported commodities, thus commercializing rural life. The typical worker was a village artisan specializing in the manufacture (by hand) of cloth, hosiery, and metal goods. Village life had become commercialized. The peasant had been transformed to a wage laborer who made his living by weaving and knitting wool and by mining, replacing the local barter economy with cash sales on imported goods like tea. Villages were becoming towns, little market centers filled with workshops and primitive manufactures creating an economy with a web of cash transactions. This industry throughout the country gave landlords interest in increasing investment in roads and canals so that products could find their way to the expanding urban market. Britain was famous for machinery in coal pits- the steam engine in its primitive form was already present. Manufactures in small metal goods, cutlery, pottery, and the woolen industry were thriving. Furthermore, manufacturing interests could determine government policy and get legislation passed to protect the home market. England truly was a nation of shopkeepers, the merchant her most characteristic citizen.

Ships and overseas trade were Britain’s life’s blood. The Navy was Britain’s most powerful weapon. The country had 6,000 merchant ships: several times the size of the French merchant navy. England was not blessed with exceptional natural resources, but her colonies and industrious inhabitants made her economy productive. International commerce was business-like and expanded through aggressive military actions.

By 1750 England had a unique political system in which Kings were subordinate to Parliament and the middle class was plentiful. Liberty expands commerce; even roads and canals were built by the private sector based on the profit principle. England was not yet a bourgeois state-- the government was dominated by an oligarchy of landed aristocrats who made the exercise of political rights dependent on the ownership of land. Even so the English nobility was different from its Continental counterparts, still feudal and absolutist. They were a post-Revolutionary elite. The Whig grandees (unlike Tory country squires) knew the power of the country rested on a willingness to make money militantly and commercially. They would make an easy adjustment to an industrial economy. England was developing into a middle class country, full of private entrepreneurs driving a dynamic economy, with a government which pursued policies of aggressive expansionism. No other country was as prepared for the industrial revolution.

2. Origins of the Industrial Revolution

“Industrial Revolution”: self-sustained economic growth by means of perpetual technological, economic and social revolution.

How did the pursuit of profit lead to economic transformation?

Why did a new phase of history start here?

Later countries could imitate the British model when they launched their industrial phases by importing capital and joining an already existent industrial economy, but these countries did not start the industrial revolution: England did.

Various theories about “Why England?”: Climate, geography, history?

An extended period of good harvests (but that had happened before)

An ample supply of coal (but not other resources)

Easy access to the sea and navigable rivers

Overseas discoveries and the scientific revolution (so why not the 17^th c.?)

The Reformation had created a proto-capitalist mindset (so why not France?)

England was part of a wider European economy that was worldwide in scale and colonies, trading destinations, dependent economies. The European economy had been expanding for several centuries. Yet it was divided into competing economic states. (Socialist: the industrial take off was certain to happen within the European economy.)

Hobsbawm’s Argument

The traditional social, economic, and ideological links of the pre-industrial period had been weakened in England. In particular, the peasantry was no longer reliant on subsistence agriculture because a commercial economy had taken root, so transfer from agricultural to industrial life was made easier for future workers.

England had accumulated the necessary capital for investment (which before the railway was not so expensive.) This capital was also in the hands of a nobility less obsessed with display than the continental aristocracy.

England had a market economy and an extensive and highly developed pre-industrial manufacturing sector.

Technological hurdles to surmount were fairly simple and therefore did not require more than ordinary literacy, familiarity with mechanical devices and metal working skills. (Not an intellectual elite: Paul Revere types instead) So the new technical inventions could be financed from smaller scale businesses and expanded piece meal.

It is mistake to think that profit alone generates technological innovation. Profit desires only profit. Manufactures are revolutionizing only if greater profits are to be made. The watch maker will produce exquisite timepieces for aristocrats at a high profit margin rather than dream of mass producing cheap wrist watches with an unproven engineering process requiring new investment. Industrialization enables production to expand its own markets. Henry Ford’s model T produced a vast number of customers for a cheap, standardized, simple automobile. Yet, his idea would have appeared as a crank before the Industrial Revolution.

So how did conditions in 18^th c. England lead businessmen to take a leap into the dark and revolutionize production?

Theories about “Why England?” emphasize not only the existence of a strong domestic market and a foreign export market but also the influence of liberal government policies and aggressive, warlike foreign policy as well. A preindustrial market of size and stability already existed in England and would provide the foundation of a generalized industrial economy.

One sure factor was population growth. In 1700 about five and a quarter million people lived in England. Rapid population growth did not begin until the 1740’s and then took off in the 1770’s. Population had doubled by 1840 and would double again by 1900 due to the rise in the birth rate because women were marrying earlier, an average of age 23 by 1825-49 compared to over 26 in 1700-24. The change in the family structure from ‘living in” with an employer to building a nuclear family helped. The demand for child labor also influenced population growth. Even so, more labor and cheaper labor does not necessarily provide economic development but England’s already prospering economy could use the growing work force. England already had a large and growing manufacturing sector.

Improvements in transport, food production and the mining of coal were essential preconditions. River, canal and road improvements were being financed by private money due to the growing demand in cities for food and fuel. Flour milling and beer brewing pioneered the technical revolution. Demand for coal grew with urban fireplaces. Steam engines were the product of the mines. (The real revolution in iron and coal production would await the invention of railroads.)

Export industries fluctuated wildly but would expand much more rapidly than domestic markets in the 1770’s: the decade which provided the ramp to the industrial lift off. Therefore, cotton manufacture had become a key to overseas trade: raw materials were imported to British manufactures and then products were sold not only in the domestic market but, with military success, an overwhelming demand came from overseas. Growth was achieved by capturing export markets and destroying foreign production capacity. War and colonization were key to industrial lift off. Monopolizing the export market of a large part of the world in a brief period of time stimulates the expansion of export industries and makes industrial revolution practicable.

Britain’s government was willing to make war and colonize for the benefit of its manufacturers. War aims were totally commercial (and naval) unlike the Dutch whose economic aims were commercial and financial. British woolen manufactures won protection in competition with Indian textile imports in 1700. In 1813 the East India Company was deprived of markets in the British dominated colonies, and India’s manufacturing deindustrialized, opening a new market for English manufactured goods.

Systematic aggression in the five great wars during the18th century achieved a virtual monopoly of colonies and a monopoly of naval power. War boosted exports by crippling European competition.

War made the British Navy contribute to technological innovation and led to industrialization. The navy sold huge contracts to iron producers and made the risks of innovation more palatable for businessmen.

Summary: Why England?

· Exports were backed by aggressive government help: protectionism and destruction of competing economies.

· Cotton textiles had become the leading domestic industry.

· Home markets provided a broad base for the economy and incentivized the improvement of inland transportation for coal and food to feed the cities particularly London.)

· Government support for merchants and manufacturers.

· Atlantic overseas markets provide growing demand for cheap products.

· Overseas colonies held cheap natural resources: tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, raw cotton and slaves.

· Colonial markets drove demand and spurred trade growth. These markets had been captured and held by force in the undeveloped world.