Reviews of How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World

What a really fascinating book that looks at the manufacturing world from the 1850’s through to the 1950’s. Piggybacking on the industrial revolution that saw Britain expand and grow greatly, saw the expansion of the manufacturing industries such as Coal, Metals, Textiles, Glass, Electrical and so on. It was really interesting and reading about some big companies and industries and how they started, some are now long gone but some are still around today. 

This book begins from the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace and continues for the next 100 years and covers the inter-war years too. There were some nice photographs to accompany the text which I probably would have liked to have seen more of. But overall, this has been an interesting read and I would recommend it to others if you enjoy this period of history.

The History Fella

This is a brilliant book. I am reading it and find it both very enlightening and absolutely full of information. Recommend it!

Neil Main - Managing Director Micrometric Limited

The subject is fascinating; covering the period between the Great Exhibition and the Festival of Britain would seem to be an impossible task, but you have done it very well indeed. There are some great photographs.

Richard Pullen - author of The Landships of Lincoln

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars 

Fascinating book.

Well written and brings life the amazing work many people did within manufacturing.

I never knew Britain had such a wide history.

Karen Bull - NetGalley 

When Phil asked me to write the forward to his book, I was not prepared for the scale, scope, detail and insights I would gain through this magnificent body of work.

Phil covers the changing industrial and manufacturing landscape between the two great exhibitions of 1851 and 1951, the latter being the year I was born.

Household names, emerge, merge and disappear as the reader is taken on a wonderful journey from our seafaring and exploring past, through a depression and two world wars to the wonderful exhibition of 1951 which displayed the strength and depth of our industrial capability.

Paul Barron CBE DSc from the foreword he wrote for the book.

You can buy How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World at Pen & Sword, on Amazon and at WH Smith.