The geographical distribution of the remaining more important English minerals may be passed in quicker review. Of the metals, the production of copper is a lapsing industry, confined to Cornwall. For the production of lead the principal counties are Derbyshire, Durham and Stanhope, but the industry is not extensive, and is confined to a few places in each county. Quarrying for limestone, clay and sandstone is general in most parts. For limestone the principal localities are in Durham, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, while for chalk-quarrying Kent is pre-eminent among a group of south-eastern counties, including Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey, with Essex. Fireclay is largely raised from coal-mines, while, among special clays, there is a considerable production of china and potter’s clays in Cornwall, Devonshire and Dorsetshire. As regards igneous rocks, the Charnwood Forest quarries of Leicestershire, and those of Cornwall, are particularly noted for their granite. Slate is worked in Cornwall and Devon, and also in Lancashire and Cumberland, where, in the Lake District, there are several large quarries. Salt, obtained principally from brine but also as rock-salt, is an important object of industry in Cheshire, the output from that county and Staffordshire exceeding a million tons annually. In Worcestershire, Durham and Yorkshire salt is also produced from brine.
The total number of persons in any way occupied in connexion with mines and quarries in England and Wales in 1901 was 805,185; the number being found to increase rapidly, as from 528,474 in 1881. Coal-mines alone occupied 643,654, and to development in this direction the total increase is chiefly due. The number of ironstone and other mines decreased in the period noticed from 55,907 to 31,606.
Manufacturing Industries.—There are of course a great number of important industries which have a general distribution throughout the country, being more or less fully developed here or there in accordance with the requirements of each locality. But in specifying the principal industries of any county, it is natural to consider those which have an influence more than local on its prosperity. In England, then, two broad classes of industry may be taken up for primary consideration—the textile and the metal. Long after textile and other industries had been flourishing in the leading states of the continent, in the Netherlands, Flanders and France, England remained, as a whole, an agricultural and pastoral country, content to export her riches in wool, and to import them again, greatly enhanced in value, as clothing. It is not to be understood that there were no manufacturing industries whatever. Rough cloth, for example, was manufactured for home consumption. But from Norman times the introduction of foreign artisans, capable of establishing industries which should produce goods fit for distant sale, occupied the attention of successive rulers. Thus the plantation of Flemish weavers in East Anglia, especially at the towns of Worstead (to which is attributed the derivation of the term worsted) and Norwich, dates from the 12th century. The industry, changing locality, like many others, in sympathy with the changes in modern conditions, has long been practically extinct in this district. Then, when religious persecution drove many of the industrial population of the west of Europe away from the homes of their birth, they liberally repaid English hospitality by establishing their own arts in the country, and teaching them to the inhabitants. Thus religious liberty formed part of the foundation of England’s industrial greatness. Then came the material agent, machinery propelled by steam. The invention of the steam engine, following quickly upon that of the carding machine, the spinning jenny, and other ingenious machinery employed in textile manufactures, gave an extraordinary impulse to their development, and, with them, that of kindred branches of industry. At the basis of all of them was England’s wealth in coal. The vast development of industries in England during the 19th century may be further correlated with certain events in the general history of the time. Insular England was not affected by the disturbing influences of the Napoleonic period in any such degree as was continental Europe. Such conditions carried on the work of British inventors in helping to develop industries so strongly that manufacturers were able to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the American Civil War (in spite of the temporary disability it entailed upon the cotton industry) and by the Franco-German War. These wars tended to paralyse industries in the countries affected, which were thus forced to English markets to buy manufactured commodities. That England, not possessing the raw material, became the seat of the cotton manufacture, was owing to the ingenuity of her inventors. It was not till the later part of the 18th century, when a series of inventions, unparalleled in the annals of industry, followed each other in quick succession, that the cotton manufacture took real root in the country, gradually eclipsing that of other European nations, although a linen manufacture in Lancashire had acquired some prominence as early as the 16th century. But though the superior excellence of their machinery enabled Englishmen to start in the race of competition, it was the discovery of the new motive power, drawn from coal, which made them win the race. In 1815 the total quantity of raw cotton imported into the United Kingdom was not more than 99 millions of pounds, which amount had increased to 152 millions of pounds in 1820, and rose further to 229 millions in 1825, so that there was considerably more than a doubling of the imports in ten years.
The geographical analysis of the cotton industry in England is simple. It belongs almost entirely to south Lancashire—to Manchester and the great industrial towns in its neighbourhood. The industry has extended into the adjacent parts of Textiles. Cheshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. The immediate neighbourhood of a coal-supply influenced the geographical settlement of this industry, like others; and the importance to the manufacture of a moist climate, such as is found on the western slope of the Pennines (in contradistinction to the eastern), must also be considered. The excess of the demand of the factories over the supply of raw material has become a remarkable feature of the industry in modern times.
The distribution of the woollen industries peculiarly illustrates the changes which have taken place since the early establishment of manufacturing industries in England. It has been seen how completely the industry has forsaken East Anglia. Similarly, this industry was of early importance along the line of the Cotteswold Hills, from Chipping Camden to Stroud and beyond, as also in some towns of Devonshire and Cornwall, but though it survives in the neighbourhood of Stroud, the importance of this district is far surpassed by that of the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the woollen industry stands pre-eminent among the many which, as already indicated, have concentrated there. As the cotton industry has in some degree extended from Lancashire into the West Riding, so has the woollen from the West Riding into a few Lancastrian towns, such as Rochdale. Among other textile industries attaching to definite localities may be mentioned the silk manufacture of eastern Staffordshire and Cheshire, as at Congleton and Macclesfield; and the hosiery and lace manufactures of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
The metal-working industries also follow a geographical distribution, mainly governed by the incidence of the coal-fields, as well as by that of the chief districts for the production of iron-ore already indicated, such as the Cleveland and Metal-working. Durham and the Furness districts. But the district most intimately connected with every branch of this industry, from engineering and the manufacture of tools, &c., to working in the precious metals, is the “Black Country” and Birmingham district of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Apart from this district, large quantities of iron and steel are produced in the manufacturing areas of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and here, as in the Black Country, are found certain centres especially noted for the production of an individual class of goods, such as Sheffield for its cutlery. There is, further, a large engineering industry in the London district; and important manufactures of agricultural implements are found at many towns of East Anglia and in other agricultural localities. Birmingham and Coventry may be specially mentioned as centres of the motor and cycle building industry. The establishment of their engineering and other workshops at certain centres by the great railway companies has important bearing on the concentration of urban population. For example, by this means the London & North Western and the Great Western companies have created large towns in Crewe and Swindon respectively.
Certain other important industries may be localized. Thus, the manufacture of china and pottery, although widespread, is primarily identified with Staffordshire, where an area comprising Stoke and a number of contiguous towns actually bears the name of the Potteries (q.v.). Derby has a similar fame, while the manufacture of glass, important in Leeds and elsewhere in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in the London district, centres peculiarly upon a single town in South Lancashire—St Helens. Finally, the bootmakers of Northamptonshire (at Wellingborough, Rushden, &c.), and the straw-plaiters of Bedfordshire (at Luton and Dunstable), deserve mention among localized industrial communities.
Occupations of the People.—The occupations of the people may be so considered as to afford a conception of the relative extent of the industries already noticed, and their importance in relation to other occupations. The figures to be given are those of the census of 1901, and embrace males and females of 10 years of age and upwards. The textile manufactures occupied a total of 994,668 persons, of which the cotton industry occupied 529,131. A high proportion of female labour is characteristic of each branch of this industry, the number of females employed being about half as many again as that of males (the proportion was 1.47 to 1 in 1901). The metal industries of every sort occupied 1,116,202; out of which those employed in engineering (including the building of all sorts of vehicles) numbered 741,346. Of the other broad classes of industry already indicated, the manufacture of boots and shoes occupied 229,257, and the pottery and glass manufactures 90,193. For the rest, the numbers of persons occupied in agriculture has been quoted as 1,192,167; and of those occupied in mining as 805,185. Among occupations not already detailed, those of the male population include transport of every sort (1,094,301), building and other works of construction (1,042,864), manufacture of articles of human consumption, lodging, &c. (774,291), commerce, banking, &c. (530,685), domestic service, &c. (304,195), professional occupations (311,618). The service of government in every branch occupied 171,687. Female workers were occupied to the number of 1,664,381 in domestic service generally. Tailoring and the textile clothing industries and trade generally occupied 602,881; teaching 172,873; nursing and other work in institutions 104,036; and the civil service, clerkships and similar occupations 82,635.
IX. Territorial Divisions, &c.
For various administrative and other purposes England and Wales have been divided, at different times from the Saxon period onwards, into a series of divisions, whose boundaries have been adjusted as each purpose demanded, without much attempt to establish uniformity. Therefore, although the methods of local government are detailed below (Section X.), and other administrative arrangements are described under the various headings dealing with each subject, it is desirable to give here, for ease of reference and distinction, a schedule of the various areas into which England and Wales are divided. The areas here given, excepting the Poor Law Union, are those utilized in the Census Returns (see the General Report, 1901).