Mass Production Without the Factory: Craft Producers, Guns and Small Firm Innovation, 1790-1815

Business History

Volumn 40, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 1-15

  Behagg, Clive ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; INDUSTRIALISATION; MANUFACTURING; SMALL SCALE INDUSTRY; TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION;

ALABAMA; BIRMINGHAM; USA;

EID: 0031684595     PISSN: 00076791     EISSN: 17437938     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00076799800000218     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. A version of this article was given as a paper to the 'Symposium on Conflict and Change in English Communities and Regions', at the University of Liverpool in March 1995. I should like to thank all participants who contributed to a lively debate on that occasion.
2. C. Sabel and J. Zeitlin, 'Historical Alternatives to Mass Production: Politics, Markets, and Technology in Nineteenth-century Industrialisation', Past and Present, Vol.108 (1985), p.142.
3. M. Berg, 'Small Producer Capitalism in Eighteenth Century England', Business History, Vol.35 No.1 (January 1993), pp.17-35.
4. P. Hudson, The Industrial Revolution (London, 1992), p.29.
5. E.P. Thompson and E. Yeo (eds.), The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from the Morning Chronicle (Harmondsworth, Middlesex); A. Randall, Before the Luddites (Cambridge, 1991).
6. E.P. Thompson and E. Yeo (eds.), The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from the Morning Chronicle (Harmondsworth, Middlesex); A. Randall, Before the Luddites (Cambridge, 1991).
7. Berg, 'Small Producer Capitalism', p.19.
8. C. Behagg, Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century (London, 1990), pp.20-70; D.A. Reid, 'The Decline of St. Monday', Past and Present, Vol.71 (May 1976), pp.76-101.
9. C. Behagg, Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century (London, 1990), pp.20-70; D.A. Reid, 'The Decline of St. Monday', Past and Present, Vol.71 (May 1976), pp.76-101.
10. Report from the Select Committee on the Manufacture of Small Arms (P.P. 1854, xviii, 12), Q.1662.
11. J.D. Goodman, 'The Birmingham Gun Trade', in S. Timmins (ed.), Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District (London, 1866), pp.401-2.
12. H. Martineau, 'Guns and Pistols', Household Words, Vol.IV (1851/52), p.582.
13. E. Hopkins, Birmingham: The First Manufacturing Town in the World (London, 1989), p.42.
14. B.M.D. Smith, 'The Galtons of Birmingham: Quaker Gun Merchants and Bankers, 1702-1831', Business History, Vol. IX No.2 (July 1967), p.141.
15. H.J. Habbakuk, American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1962), pp.41-2.
16. E. Ames and N. Rosenberg, 'The Enfield Arsenal in Theory and Practice', in S.B. Saul (ed.), Technological Change: The United States and Britain in the 19th Century (London, 1970), pp.98-119.
17. R.S. Woodbury, 'The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts', Technology and Culture, Vol.1 (1960), pp.242-3.
18. Saul, Technological Change, pp.6-10.
19. Select Committee on the Manufacture of Small Arms, Q.1674.
20. M.B. Rowlands, 'Continuity and Change in an Industrialising Society: The Case of the West Midlands', in P. Hudson (ed.), Regions and Industries: A Perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Cambridge, 1989), pp.103-31. The 'multiplier' relationship between large- and small-scale units of production is explored in R. Samuel, 'The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-Victorian Britain', History Workshop, Vol.3 (Spring 1977), pp.6-72.
21. M.B. Rowlands, 'Continuity and Change in an Industrialising Society: The Case of the West Midlands', in P. Hudson (ed.), Regions and Industries: A Perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Cambridge, 1989), pp.103-31. The 'multiplier' relationship between large- and small-scale units of production is explored in R. Samuel, 'The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-Victorian Britain', History Workshop, Vol.3 (Spring 1977), pp.6-72.
22. M.J. Wise, 'On the Evolution of the Jewelry and Gun Quarters in Birmingham', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 15 (1951), pp.110-15.
23. Morning Chronicle 18 Nov. 1850.
24. A. Randall, 'The Industrial Moral Economy of the Gloucestershire Weavers', in J. Rule (ed.), British Trade Unionism, 1750-1850: The Formative Years (London, 1988), pp.29-51.
25. Birmingham Reference Library, Galton Papers, 9 Dec. 1754.
26. Galton Papers 405/1, 30 May 1754.
27. The terms occur throughout the corresponding field in the Galton Papers, covering the mid-eighteenth century period.
28. Birmingham Journal, Nov. 1838.
29. Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 20 May 1816.
30. Morning Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1850; Household Words, Vol.IV (1851/52), p.582; Select Committee on Small Arms, QQ. 411-15.
31. Morning Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1850; Household Words, Vol.IV (1851/52), p.582; Select Committee on Small Arms, QQ. 411-15.
32. Morning Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1850; Household Words, Vol.IV (1851/52), p.582; Select Committee on Small Arms, QQ. 411-15.
33. War Office Papers (hereafter WOP) 44/519, Deposition of John Adams, in 'Enquiry by a Board of Officers Ordered by the Duke of Wellington into Charges of Corruption and Neglect in the Receipt and Examination of Arms Sent to the Small Arms Inspection Department During the Late War, 1824'.
34. Morning Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1850.
35. J.L. Anderson, 'The British Economy and the Wars Against France 1793-1815', Australian Review of Economic History, Vol.XII (1972), p.4.
36. WOP 44/519, Deposition of John Marshall.
37. Ibid., Deposition of John Massingham.
38. Ibid., Crew to Miller, 8 Aug. 1808.
39. Merrit Roe Smith, Harper's Ferry and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (London, 1977), p.325: 'The primary stimulus here came from the army, particularly its desire for more uniform and precisely made weapons.'
40. C. Treblicock, '"Spin-Off" in British Economic History: Armaments and Industry, 1760-1914', Economic History Review, 2nd series, Vol.XXII No.3 (Dec. 1969), pp.474-90.
41. Birmingham Reference Library, Catalogue of Old Engines, Boulton and Watt Papers.
42. Litchfield Record Office, Will of Dionysius Davis.
43. Litchfield Record Office, Letter enclosed in the will of George Domisthorpe, 1802
44. De Wit Bailey and D.A. Nie, English Gunmakers: The Birmingham and Provincial Gun Trade in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London, 1978).
45. L. Simond, Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain During the Years 1810-1811 (Edinburgh, 1817), pp.120-24.
46. WOP 44/519, Appendix P, 'Memoranda of Correspondence Produced to the Board of Officers by the Manufacturers of Birmingham Showing the Repeated Orders Received by Them From the Board of Ordnance to Increase the Supply of Arms'.
47. Ibid., Appendix P.
48. Aris's Birmingham Gazette, 23 Jan. 1816.
49. Ibid., 20 May 1816.
50. Morning Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1850.
51. Ibid.
52. For a fuller analysis of this relationship, see Behagg, Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century, pp.67-70.
53. Birmingham Reference Library, Journal of Thomas Augusts Finigan, 1837-38, 6 Dec. 1837.
54. WOP 44/519, 'Summary and Findings'.
55. C. Behagg, 'Controlling the Product: Work, Leisure, and the Early Industrial Workforce in Britain, 1800-1850', in G. Cross (ed.), Worktime and Industrialisation: An International History (Philadelphia, PA, 1988), pp.41-58.
56. Morning Chronicle, 11 Nov. 1850.
57. Ibid.
58. WOP 44/519, Appendix P.
59. WOP 44/701.
60. Goodman, 'The Birmingham Gun Trade', pp.403-4.
61. P.K. O'Brien, The Impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815, on the Long Run Growth of the British Economy', Fernand Braudel Center Review, Vol XII No.3 (Summer 1989), p.368; see also Treblicock, '"Spin Off" in British Economic History'; F. Crouzet, 'Wars, Blockade and Economic Change in Europe, 1792-1815', Journal of Economic History, Vol.24 (1964), pp.567-90.
62. P.K. O'Brien, The Impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815, on the Long Run Growth of the British Economy', Fernand Braudel Center Review, Vol XII No.3 (Summer 1989), p.368; see also Treblicock, '"Spin Off" in British Economic History'; F. Crouzet, 'Wars, Blockade and Economic Change in Europe, 1792-1815', Journal of Economic History, Vol.24 (1964), pp.567-90.
63. P.K. O'Brien, The Impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815, on the Long Run Growth of the British Economy', Fernand Braudel Center Review, Vol XII No.3 (Summer 1989), p.368; see also Treblicock, '"Spin Off" in British Economic History'; F. Crouzet, 'Wars, Blockade and Economic Change in Europe, 1792-1815', Journal of Economic History, Vol.24 (1964), pp.567-90.