Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Small producer capitalism in 18th-century England

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Berg, Maxine (1993) Small producer capitalism in 18th-century England. Business History, Vol.35 (No.1). pp. 17-39. doi:10.1080/00076799300000002

Research output not available from this repository, contact author.
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00076799300000002

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Recent models of industrial organisation incorporate batch production, flexible specialisation and network capitalism, yet histories of British industry have been written as successes and failures in gaining economies of large-scale production. The factory and the large-scale firm have dominated our ideas of the Industrial Revolution. These perspectives have been reinforced by mythologising from the early nineteenth century onward the divide between artisan and factory production. This paper points out the diversity of manufacturing structures and the relatively small scale of eighteenth-century England's first factories. It then investigates the non-factory, small- and medium-scale industry of the English metal trades, notably those of the Birmingham and Sheffield trades. The insurance and probate records of a broad range of producers of light metal goods show the very important place of a dynamic core of small- and medium-scale producers. These producers deployed multiple production units, specialisation and the division of labour, and claimed the gains of 'networking' within a workshop economy. The position of the small- to medium-scale core was eroded in the early nineteenth century, leaving a rift between small-scale and large-scale producers. and the attendant historical myths of artisan and factory production. The experience of these trades are analysed in the light of Sokoloffs ideas of the 'small scale factory' and the 'democracy of invention,' and in the light of Alfred Marshall's 'external economies' and Sargant Florence's 'industrial swarming'.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Divisions: Faculty of Arts > History
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Small business -- England -- History -- 18th century, England -- Economic conditions -- 18th century, Capitalism -- England -- History -- 18th century
Journal or Publication Title: Business History
Publisher: Routledge
ISSN: 0007-6791
Official Date: January 1993
Dates:
DateEvent
January 1993Published
Volume: Vol.35
Number: No.1
Number of Pages: 23
Page Range: pp. 17-39
DOI: 10.1080/00076799300000002
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item
twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us