How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World published 15 June 2022

 Great to hear that the book is in the warehouse ready for despatch. 

The peoples of the British Isles gave to the world the foundations on which modern manufacturing economies are built. This is quite an assertion, but history shows that, in the late eighteenth century, a remarkable combination of factors and circumstances combined to give birth to Britain as the first manufacturing nation. Further factors allowed it to remain top manufacturing dog well into the twentieth century whilst other countries were busy playing catch- up. Through two world wars and the surrounding years, British manufacturing remained strong, albeit whilst ceding the lead to the United States.

This book seeks to tell the remarkable story of British manufacturing, using the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a prism. Prince Albert and Sir Henry Cole had conceived an idea of bringing together exhibits from manufacturers across the world to show to its many millions of visitors the pre-eminence of the British. 1851 was not the start, but rather a pause for a bask in glory.

The book traces back from the exhibits in Hyde Park’s Crystal Palace to identify the factors that gave rise to this pre-eminence, just as the factory system at Cromford Mill. It then follows developments up until the Festival of Britain exactly one century later. Steam power and communication by electric telegraph, both British inventions, predated the Exhibition. After it came the sewing machine and bicycle, motor car and aeroplane, but also electrical power, radio and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Here is a bit about me 

And here is a link to Pen&Sword in the hope that you will want to buy a copy.

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World - my approach

I had, through my earlier writing, discovered that my great grandfather had exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and so I found a copy of the catalogue and began to thumb through. They were there, some of the businesses I had come across in my research into army supply in the world wars. I also found many others whose names rang bells from my childhood. Those names sent me on voyages of discovery. 

I read many books, including David Cannadine’s Victorious Century which gave me the context. I devoured Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution which offered a radical view of the industrial revolution. I had studied urbanisation as part of my BA, and so turned to Jerry White for his books on London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It soon became clear that trade was at the heart of the birth of British manufacturing and so I turned to Anthony Slaven’s, British Shipbuilding 1500-2010 and Peter Moore’s, The Endeavour. From there it was on to the more familiar coal and iron with Robert Galloway’s, A History of Coal Mining in Great Britain, Eric Hopkins’s, The Rise of the Manufacturing Town Birmingham and the Industrial Revolution and Roger Osborne’s, Iron, Steam & Money; I had studied the role of Birmingham also as part of my BA. Hobsbawm had directed me to textiles, and so I read The Lancashire Cotton Industry – A History since 1700, edited by Mary Rose, and Robert Poole’s, Peterloo – the English Uprising. 

This brought me to individual British companies. I am massively grateful to Grace’s Guide’s wonderful online resource, but also to company’s websites and to writers of articles for their painstaking exploration of subject areas. I read authors who have devoted themselves to securing for posterity the stories of the companies they explored:, Bernard Newman’s, One Hundred Years of Good Company on Ruston & Hornsby, J.D. Scott, Siemens Brothers 1858-1958 and also his Vickers: A History, Demaus. and Tarring’s, The Humber Story 1868-1932, Geoff Carverhill, Rootes Story: The Making of a Global Automotive Empire, Carol Kennedy’s ICI The Company that Changed our Lives, and Alan Towsin’s books on a number of commercial vehicle manufacturers. Books on industries: Aileen Fyfe, Steam-Powered Knowledge, George I Brown, The Big Bang: A History of Explosives, Alex Askaroff’s, A Brief History of the Sewing Machine, William Manners’s, Revolution: How the Bicycle Reinvented Modern Britain, Steven Parissien’s, The Life of the Automobile, A New History of the Motor Car, Peter Dancy’s, British Aircraft Manufacturers since 1909, Graham Turner’s, The Car Makers, Keith Geddes and Gordon Bussey’s, Setmakers – A History of the Radio and Television Industry. Books on people and families: Henrietta Heald’s William Armstrong, Magician of the North, Marion Miller’s, Cawnpore to Cromar: The MacRoberts of Douneside, and Andrews and Brunner’s, The Life of Lord Nuffield – A Study in Enterprise and Benevolence. The Complete Great British Railway Journeys by Charlie Bunce and Karen Farrington provided a vivid verbal map which helped me navigate a sometimes crowded landscape.

I carried out my own research into Census returns and published industrial statistics; I had explored industry in the interwar years as part of my BA. My earlier work on supplies in the two world wars proved of enduring value: War on Wheels on the mechanisation of the British Army in the Second World War, Ordnance on Equipping the Army for the Great War and Dunkirk to D Day which looked at the lives of some of the leaders of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps to whose lot this massive task fell.

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World is available to pre-order from Pen & Sword. 

Employment and Pay

  In 2022, we are facing an economy where there are many low paid jobs, too poorly paid to begin to support a family even if both partners are working.

This contrasts with the 1950s, for example, when employment in manufacturing was high, the mines were still functioning and the railways employed many people. The rates of pay, although not great, were just about sufficient.

In the years in between, manufacturing, mining and railway jobs have reduced dramatically. They have been replaced by jobs in the service industries which are often poorly paid, not full time and insecure.

It is fatuous for politicians to pretend that the old jobs will return. Manufacturing, although buoyant, is no longer a major employer. The mines have closed and, with net zero, will remain closed.

With largely a service based economy, what is the answer? We remain a wealthy nation; we need a mechanism by which that wealth can be shared. 

The image is of a climate change protest in Lincoln in 2019. The question on the placard is every bit as pertinent to this issue.