PART III: 1660-1846
SECTION I
INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
1. Defoe's Account of the West Riding Cloth Industry, 1724—2. Defoe's Account of the Woollen Trade, temp. George II.—3. Defoe's Account of the Corn Trade, temp. George II.—4. Defoe's Account of the Coal Trade, temp. George II.—5. A Description of Middlemen in the Woollen Industry, 1739.—6. Report on the Condition of Children in Lancashire Cotton Factories, 1796—7. The Newcastle Coal Vend, 1771-1830—8. The old Apprenticeship System in the Woollen Industry, 1806—9. A Petition of Cotton Weavers, 1807—10. Depression of Wages and its Causes in the Cotton Industry, 1812—11. Evidence of the Condition of Children in Factories, 1816—12. Change in the Cotton Industry and the Introduction of Power-loom Weaving, 1785-1807—13. Evidence by Factory Workers of the Condition of Children, 1832—14. Women's and Children's Labour in Mines, 1842—15. Description of the Condition of Manchester by John Robertson, Surgeon, 1840.
The documents in this section are intended to illustrate changes in industry and their effects on social conditions between 1660 and 1846. Eight extracts illustrate the condition of industries in the period, their structure, organisation and methods (Nos. 1 to 5, 7, 8 and 12). The first five refer to the early part of the eighteenth century and have a double interest. They record the old conditions in the woollen industry and the wool, corn and coal trades, and enable us to estimate the completeness of the change which was coming (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). They show also how far advanced already was the organisation of markets and middlemen, and vertical control. A description of the conditions of the old apprenticeship system in the woollen industry is added (No. 8). Evidence before Committees on the Coal Trade gives an account of the important monopoly agreements and limitations of output which the peculiar conditions of the industry produced (No. 7). An example of the mechanical inventions which revolutionised industry at the close of the period is taken from an autobiographical pamphlet by a pioneer in power-loom cotton weaving (No. 12).
The pressure of industrial change on human life had been felt for some time before the application of new motive-power to machinery took full effect. The fluctuations of the cotton weaving industry and the depression of wages, aggravated by the French wars and trade restrictions, are illustrated by a petition of weavers (No. 9) and by evidence before a committee on the Orders in Council (No. 10). The rest of the extracts refer chiefly to the employment of children under the new industrial conditions. The report of Dr. Perceval in 1796 (No. 6) helped to produce the original Factory Act (See Pt. III, Section III, No. 9). The evidence of Peel and Owen before the committee of 1816 is given as the testimony of exceptional employers (No. 11). It supplements the picture painted by children, parents and overseers before Sadler's committee (No. 13). The Commission of 1842 (No. 14) supplies evidence of the conditions under which women and children worked in the coal mines. A brief description by a surgeon of the condition of Manchester in 1840 is added as giving some indication of the part played by housing conditions in the Industrial Revolution (No. 15).
AUTHORITIES
On Industrial Organisation the principal modern writers are Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times; Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle; Toynbee, The Industrial Revolution; Marx, Capital, Vol. II; Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, Social England (edited Traill); H. Levy, Monopoly and Competition. Consult also Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, Lives of Boulton and Watt, Industrial Biography; Meteyard, Life of Wedgwood; Chapman, The Cotton Industry; Galloway, Annals of Coalmining; Boyd, History of the Coal Trade; Lloyd, The Cutlery Trades; Leone Levi, History of British Commerce; Porter, The Progress of the Nation, and The Victoria County History, passim (articles on social and economic history and on industries). For social conditions and changes consult Mantoux, Cunningham, Marx, and other writers above-mentioned, and Hutchins, The Public Health Agitation; Cooke Taylor, The Factory System and Introduction to the Factory System; Webb, History of Trade Unionism.