previous amount quoted. The waste of timber was most noticeable in the Sussex Wealden, the forests of which owe their destruction almost entirely to the iron and glass manufactures.2 But about this time another inventor, Abraham Darby, of the famous Coalbrookdale Ironworks, discovered the secret of the large blast-furnace in which both pit-coal and charcoal were used. He began his experiments as early as 1730, but did not do much for some twenty years. In 1756, however, his works were "at the top pinnacle of prosperity; twenty and twenty-two tons per week sold off as fast as made, and profit enough." " 4 After Darby came Smeaton, and other inventors, and the Industrial Revolution spread to the iron trade. see it in operation in our next period.5 § 190. Pottery. We shall As with all other manufactures, so, too, the development of pottery was reserved for the Renaissance of industry in the eighteenth century. Of course pottery of a kind had always been made in England, especially where the useful soil of Staffordshire formed a favourable ground for the exercise of this art. But the pottery hitherto manufactured had been rude and coarse, and its manufacture was a strictly domestic and not very widespread industry. We owe its improvement, as in so many other cases, largely to the efforts of the Dutch and Huguenot immigrants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For the Dutch had been great among the potters of Europe, as the renown of Delft-ware still testifies, while France had the honour of being the land of Palissy. The factories at Burslem, how 8 1 Romance of Trade, p. 178, and M'Culloch, Commercial Dict., s.v. Iron. * Norden, in Rogers, Hist. Agric., v. 44. 3 Smiles, Industrial Biography, ch. v. p. 80. Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 179. " Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 169. "Below, p. 341, 352. 7 There were, however, potteries elsewhere than in Staffs., as e.g. in Essex; Pennant (1801), Journey from London to the Isle of Wight, i. 53; and Lowestoft ware is well known to connoisseurs. 8 Anderson, Chron. Commerce, ii. 569. ever, owed their origin to the industry of two Germans from Nuremberg, called Elers, from whom an Englishman, Astbury, learnt the secret of producing the red unglazed Japanese ware, and the black Egyptian ware.1 Burslem, too, was the birthplace of Josiah Wedgwood, born 1730, who first began business in 1752 as manager for a masterpotter, but started in business on his own account in 1759, the eve of the Industrial Revolution. His efforts and experiments were magnificent and untiring, and they can be read at leisure in various biographical works. It is sufficient here to say that Wedgwood was the man who first made the art of pottery a science, and before his death, in 1795, he had brought this manufacture to such a pitch of excellence that few improvements have been left for his successors to make, and it rose to be one of the chief industries of the country.3 § 191. Other Mining Industries. There remain one or two industries that require a passing mention, but which were not in the eighteenth century of much importance. As to the metals, the foreign trade in tin and lead has been already mentioned. In the reign of John the tin-mines of Cornwall were farmed by the Jews, and the tin and lead trade must have attained considerable proportions in the fourteenth century, for the Black Prince paid his own expenses in the French wars by the produce of his mines of those metals in Devonshire.5 Copper, also, was mined in the northern counties, and in a statute of 15 Edward III. (1343) we find grants of mines given at Skeldane, in Northumberland; at Alston Moor, in Cumberland; and at Richmond, in Yorkshire; a royalty of one-eighth going to the king, and one-ninth to the lord of the manor.6 Keswick was at that time a centre of this industry; but the art of the coppersmith was developed chiefly in Germany." The mines were also very primitive, the approaches being made, not 1 Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 171; Smiles, Self Help, 2 Smiles, Self Help, pp. 88-93. 4 Yeats, Technical History of Commerce, p. 172. Ib., p. 173. p. 88. Ib., p. 92. Ib., p. 173. 7 Ib., p. 185. by shafts, but by adits in the side of a convenient hill. Another mineral, which is very abundant in England, especially in Worcestershire and Cheshire, was at this period hardly utilised. Salt was a necessary of life to the English householder, for he had to salt his meat for the winter; but he did not know how to mine it himself, and either got it imported from south-west France, or contented himself with the inferior article evaporated on the seacoast, until the end of the seventeenth century.1 It has been already mentioned that brick-making was a lost art from the fifth to the fifteenth century. The first purchase to be recorded was at Cambridge, in 1449; but before the end of the fifteenth century it became a common building material in the eastern counties, and in the sixteenth century was generally used in London and in the counties along the lower course of the Thames.2 § 192. The Close of the Period of Manual Industries. We have now reached a turning-point in English industrial history, and are about to study a period that is in every way a violent contrast to the centuries which preceded it. We have come to the time when machinery begins to displace unaided manual labour. Hitherto all our manufactures, our mining, and, of course, our agriculture, had been performed by the literal labour of men's hands, helped but slightly by a few simple inventions. Industry, too, was not organised upon a vast capitalistic basis, though of course capitalists existed; but it would be more correct to say that hitherto industry had been chiefly carried on by numbers of smaller capitalists who were also manual workmen, even when they employed other workmen under them.3 Only in agriculture had the capitalist class become very far removed from the labourers.4 There was certainly no such violent contrast as now exists between a mill-owner and a mill-band in the realm of manufacturing industry, though, 1 Rogers, Econ. Interpretation, p. 277. 2 Ib., p. 279. Cf. Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 72, 53. 5 4 Above, pp. 157, 184, 212, 216, 271. Toynbee (p. 71) is wrong in saying "the capitalist farmers were not yet in existence." "Toynbee, Indust. Rev., pp. 71, 53. of course, this contrast existed between the rich landowner, who received rents, and the poor agricultural labourer, whose labour helped to pay them. But, speaking of industry generally, it may be said that the absence of machinery kept employers and workmen more upon a common level; and as large factories, of course, did not exist, industry was carried on chiefly in the workmen's homes, while the workman was not merely a unit among hundreds of unknown "hands" in a mill, but a person not hopelessly removed in social rank from his employer, who was well acquainted with him, and, like him, worked with his own hands. But now this old order of things passes away, and a new order appears, ushered in by the whirr and rattle of machinery and the mighty hiss of steam. A complete transformation takes place, and the life of England stirs anew in the great Industrial Revolution. by shafts, but by adits in the side of a convenient hill. Another mineral, which is very abundant in England, especially in Worcestershire and Cheshire, was at this period hardly utilised. Salt was a necessary of life to the English householder, for he had to salt his meat for the winter; but he did not know how to mine it himself, and either got it imported from south-west France, or contented himself with the inferior article evaporated on the seacoast, until the end of the seventeenth century.1 It has been already mentioned that brick-making was a lost art from the fifth to the fifteenth century. The first purchase to be recorded was at Cambridge, in 1449; but before the end of the fifteenth century it became a common building material in the eastern counties, and in the sixteenth century was generally used in London and in the counties along the lower course of the Thames.2 § 192. The Close of the Period of Manual Industries. We have now reached a turning-point in English industrial history, and are about to study a period that is in every way a violent contrast to the centuries which preceded it. We have come to the time when machinery begins to displace unaided manual labour. Hitherto all our manufactures, our mining, and, of course, our agriculture, had been performed by the literal labour of men's hands, helped but slightly by a few simple inventions. Industry, too, was not organised upon a vast capitalistic basis, though of course capitalists existed; but it would be more correct to say that hitherto industry had been chiefly carried on by numbers of smaller capitalists who were also manual workmen, even when they employed other workmen under them.3 Only in agriculture had the capitalist class become very far removed from the labourers. There was certainly no such violent contrast as now exists between a mill-owner and a mill-band in the realm of manufacturing industry, though, 1 Rogers, Econ. Interpretation, p. 277. 3 Cf. Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 72, 53. 2 Ib., p. 279. 4 Above, pp. 157, 184, 212, 216, 271. Toynbee (p. 71) is wrong in say ing "the capitalist farmers were not yet in existence." |