300,000 blog hits - the story of manufacturing places is resonating around the world

Manufacturing had a huge impact on Britain as is clear from what some might refer to as its aftermath seen all too vividly in current political conversations.  

A timeline of Lincoln engineering produced for the spark festival 

I have been exploring its history for some five years and have seen its relevance as a reflection in modern Britain itself and the social consequences of economic change across generations. I saw the need to dig geographically as well as chronologically, my current project is the result of that geographical quest.

Manufacturing transformed the places where it took place. Villages became towns because millennia earlier great forests had been buried and became rich seams of coal. Tiny seaside communities surviving on fishing witnessed the building of ever larger ships carrying cargoes of coal or wool and returning with exotic goods from the east. Waring barons found their swords replaced by guns cast from ore left in the earth’s crust. Disperate communities were linked first by sea then by turnpike, canal, railway, road and air.

Manufacturing places emerged close to raw materials and sources of energy. Climate and topography gathered manufacturing which thrived in local conditions. In time as centres of population emerged, manufacturing followed to meet their every need. Inventions were pursued where skills had been nurtured.

None of this was planned, least of all two world wars which energised manufacturers across the land to war effort, leaving vast factories in their wake crying out for new uses.

In truth it is hard to say why Britain moved ahead of its great trading rivals: the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese. But it did, only to be overtaken by America, Germany and France and replaced by developing countries.

This left manufacturers stranded with factories and workforces no longer needed, leaving populations without work, steelworks replaced by supermarkets, factories by warehouses.