§ 4. The growth of population and the development of the Northern districts
At the same time, the great migration to the North, already begun before the Revolution, was now accelerated and completed. The Northern counties, which in the Middle Ages had, as we saw, been comparatively deserted, now became and have since remained the most populous and flourishing of all. The centres of the new factory system were in the North, and thither flocked the workers who had formerly been distributed over England in a much more extensive manner, or who had clustered round the great Eastern and Western centres of industry, which before 1760 had excelled the other centre, the West Riding, in prosperity. But now this was changed. Before the Revolution, the Eastern counties, more especially about Norwich and the surrounding districts, had been famous for their manufactures of crapes, bombazines, and other fine, slight stuffs. In the West of England the towns of Bradford-on-Avon, Devizes, and Warminster had been manufacturing centres noted for their fine serges; Stroud had been the centre of the manufacture of dyed cloth, and so had Taunton been, for even in Defoe’s time (1725) it had 1100 looms; and the excellence of the Cotswold wool had done much for the industry of the district. These two centres and their productions, then, were far more famous than the third, the West Riding, including the towns of Halifax, Leeds, and Bradford, where only coarse cloths were made. The cotton trade {164} of Lancashire, too, had previously been insignificant, for it was only incidentally mentioned by Adam Smith, though Manchester and Bolton were then, as now, its headquarters. In 1760 only 40,000 persons were engaged in it, the annual value of the cotton manufacture was comparatively insignificant, while in 1764 the value of our cotton exports was only one-twentieth of our woollen, and only strong cottons, such as dimities and fustians, were made. But now the cotton cities of Lancashire and the woollen and worsted factories of Yorkshire greatly surpass the older seats of industry in wealth and population, while the cotton export has risen to be the first in the kingdom, and the vast majority of the industrial population is now found North of the Trent. These great industrial changes were the direct consequence of the introduction of new manufacturing processes. For the use of steam power in mills necessitated the liberal use of coal, and hence the factory districts are necessarily almost coincident with the great coal-fields, as will be seen from the appended map.[47] Moreover, the coal industry had been developed almost simultaneously with the growth of manufactures, and indeed one reacted upon the other. It will be convenient here to mention the improvements made in coal-mining and in the iron trade.
[47] In this industrial map it will be seen that we have
- (1) corresponding to the Yorks coal-field, manufactrs. of woollens, &c., cutlery, &c., lace & hosiery, machinery.
- (2) corresponding to the Lancs. coal-field, manufactrs. of cotton.
- (3) corresponding to the Staffs coal-field manufactrs. of pottery and hardware.
- (4) corresponding to the S. Wales coal-field smelting & iron industries.
MAP OF ENGLAND
Showing Coalfields and corresponding Manufactures
§ 5. The revolution in the mining industries
With the great output of coal came an immediate revival of the iron trade, which it will be remembered had greatly declined about 1737 and 1740, for as coal was not available wood had to be used as fuel, and the consequent destruction of forests, especially the Sussex Wealden, had caused legislative prohibitions. The scientific treatment of iron ore in the various processes of manufacture had indeed been improved, but nothing much could be done without coal. This was seen for instance by an ironmaster, Anthony Bacon, in 1755, who obtained a lease for 99 years of a district at Merthyr Tydvil, eight miles long and five broad, upon which he erected both iron and coal works. In 1760 Smeaton’s invention of a new blowing apparatus at his works at Carron, near Falkirk, did away with the old clumsy bellows; and the other inventions of Cranage (1766), of Onions (1783), and of Cort {166} (1784), for which separate treatises must be consulted, brought the manufacture of iron almost to perfection. Whereas about 1740 we produced only some 18,000 tons of iron annually, and had to import at least 20,000 tons; we produced in 1788 as much as 68,000 tons, and the production has gone on steadily increasing to the present time, when our export alone amounts to four and a half million tons of iron and steel annually.