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Technology and Culture 42.1 (2001) 194-195



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Book Review

Merchants, Markets, and Manufacture: The English Wool Textile Industry in the Eighteenth Century


Merchants, Markets, and Manufacture: The English Wool Textile Industry in the Eighteenth Century. By John Smail. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. Pp. x+198. $65.

The English wool textile industries in the Industrial Revolution have been well served by their economic historians, in particular by Julia Mann and R. G. Wilson. Both, Wilson especially, have drawn attention to the vital role played by the merchant class in the development of production. But the essential narrative of most accounts has remained that of technological and structural change, with the role of merchant and marketing taking something of a back seat. In this book, John Smail seeks to modify that picture, shifting attention away from consumption demands and production "breakthroughs" and recasting the starring role from innovator to marketeer.

Smail properly criticizes the way in which much of the general writing about industrialization sees economic growth in the textile industries as simply an outcome of new technologies and techniques. Cloth, woollen every bit as much as cotton, was not merely a given commodity, purchased simply on price, but heavily dependent on consumer choice, a choice determined by a combination of look, feel, and fashion every bit as much as cost. Here, Smail argues, is where we should look for the reasons for the shift in the character of wool textile products in the years after 1760 and for the reasons for differential growth from region to region thereafter. A new emphasis on fashion was both developed and responded to by merchants who recognized that marketing was the key to sales growth and used their purchasing power to change products and production accordingly.

Smail gives attention to all the major wool producing regions, but his focus lies in Yorkshire, the location of his earlier work on the merchant community. His accounts of the activities and "adventures" of merchants likewise builds on the legacy of earlier Yorkshire historians, most particularly on Wilson, who thirty years ago cogently argued that the real reason for the ascendancy of that county lay in the entrepreneurial enthusiasm of her merchants. But if the case is not original, Smail nonetheless provides impressive detail, context, and regional comparisons to develop the theme. A series of informative case studies of different firms examines the interaction between merchants and producers and between the wool textile merchants from the region and merchants in London, America, and Europe.

Smail recognizes that the role of merchant differed between the regions. In Yorkshire, merchants generally bought cloth direct from the "little makers," whereas in the west gentlemen clothiers controlled the whole process from the purchase of wool to its sale as cloth. Consequently, as Smail notes, in the west of England far more of an entrepreneur's capital and attention were tied up in the process of production. Yorkshire merchant-capitalists could move their resources around more rapidly and concentrate upon [End Page 194] marketing. Yet in both regions after 1760 there was a trend for the merchants and larger merchant-producers everywhere to begin to shift toward a making-to-order business culture. This was a trend that would accelerate toward the end of the century, with major implications for the master clothiers and weavers.

Concentration on the role of merchants highlights the importance of finishing in the development of demand. This element of production could determine the desirability and hence the price of cloth. Here Smail advances an interesting and original case, that the development of newer finishing techniques, such as hot pressing and rolling, as well as the use of laborsaving technology, enabled the Yorkshire industry to improve the otherwise poorer quality of its production and thereby enabled it to pose a serious challenge to the west's domination of the fine- and middle-quality market. Smail argues that it was this threat that induced manufacturers in the west to concentrate ever more on the fine trade, thereby vacating the field where growth would...

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