Before factories: proto-industry and the first mills

Two proud pictures. In 1900, a music book cover showed an angel of progress flying into the new century, surrounded by railways, cameras, machines and factories. In 1901, a trade magazine showed two magicians: Aladdin from the 'Orient' (the East), who built a palace with a magic lamp, and a modern mechanic from the West, who builds bridges, ships and towers with tools. The message: the West is modern, the East is the past, and industry is pure progress. The chapter asks: is that the whole story? What did industry mean for people's lives?

Industry before factories: proto-industrialisation. We usually think industry means factories. But even before factories, there was large-scale production for an international market, done in village homes. Historians call this proto-industrialisation (proto means 'early form').

Why merchants went to the villages. In the 17th and 18th centuries, world trade and colonies made demand grow. But merchants could not expand in the towns, where powerful guilds (associations of craftsmen) controlled production, prices and competition, and kept newcomers out. So merchants went to the countryside. There, the commons (shared land where poor families gathered firewood, berries, vegetables, hay and straw) were being enclosed, and cottagers needed another income. When merchants offered advances to make goods, poor families eagerly agreed: they could stay on their land, earn extra, and use the labour of the whole family.

The merchant clothier's chain. In England, a merchant clothier bought wool from a stapler (who sorted it), took it to spinners, then the yarn went to weavers, then fullers, then dyers. London did the finishing before the cloth was exported. At each stage a merchant employed 20 to 25 workers, so one clothier controlled hundreds of workers, all working at home, not in factories.

The first factories. The earliest English factories appeared by the 1730s, but they multiplied only in the late 18th century. Cotton led the way: Britain's raw cotton imports rose from 2.5 million pounds in 1760 to 22 million pounds by 1787. New inventions improved each step (carding, twisting, spinning, rolling), so each worker produced more, and stronger thread. Then Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill: costly machines were installed in one place, and all the processes came under one roof and one management. That made it easier to supervise work, check quality, and control workers.

What people noticed, and what they missed. By the early 19th century, huge mills dominated the English landscape, and people were dazzled by them. They almost forgot the small workshops and back lanes where much production still went on. What we believe about the past depends on what historians choose to notice.