Overview

An engagingly written account of textile engineering in its key northern centres, rich with historical narrative and analysis. The engineers who built the first generations of modern textile machines, between 1770 and 1850, pushed at the boundaries of possibility. This book investigates these pioneering machine-makers, almost all working within textile communities in northern England, and the industry they created. It probes their origins and skills, the sources of their inspiration and impetus, and how it was possible to develop a high-tech, factory-centred, world-leading marketin textile machinery virtually from scratch. The story of textile engineering defies classical assumptions about the driving forces behind the Industrial Revolution. The circumstances of its birth, and the personal affiliationsat work during periods of exceptional creativity, suggest that the potential to accelerate economic growth could be found within social assets and craft skills. Appreciating textile engineering within its own time and context challenges views inherited from Victorian thinkers, who tended to ascribe to it features of the fully fledged industry they saw before them. The Age of Machinery is an engagingly written account of the trade in its key northern centres, devoid of jargon and yet tightly argued, equally rich with historical narrative and analysis. It will be invaluable not only to students and scholars of British economic history and the Industrial Revolution but also tosocial scientists looking at human agency and its contribution to economic growth and innovation. GILLIAN COOKSON holds a DPhil in economic history and has been employed since 1995 in academic research and consultancy,including as county editor, Victoria County History of Durham.

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9781783272761

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This is a rich, extremely well-researched and well-argued book that sheds valuable light on the evolution of textile machine technology during the British Industrial Revolution. JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES Cookson's account is dense and carefully argued, but it is also rich and engaging, addressing issues of fundamental significance for processes of technological advance and economic growth. Highly recommended. CHOICE

A masterly account of the early northern textile machine makers, their origins, social networks, skills and the influence they had on the emergent factory movement. * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW * This engaging, erudite study investigates the firms and people who made the machines of the Industrial Revolution. * TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE * A brilliant account. * ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW * A very important book on the origins of the English Industrial Revolution. ... Rich and insightful. * BUSINESS HISTORY * This is a rich, extremely well-researched and well-argued book that sheds valuable light on the evolution of textile machine technology during the British Industrial Revolution. * JOURNAL OF BRITISH STUDIES * Cookson's account is dense and carefully argued, but it is also rich and engaging, addressing issues of fundamental significance for processes of technological advance and economic growth. Highly recommended. * CHOICE *

Cookson's account is dense and carefully argued, but it is also rich and engaging, addressing issues of fundamental significance for processes of technological advance and economic growth. Highly recommended. CHOICE

Author Information

GILLIAN COOKSON is an industrial historian. She is the author of The Age of Machinery: Engineering the Industrial Revolution, 1770-1850, published by The Boydell Press in 2018.

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