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Peers, Patronage, and the Industrial Revolution, 1760-18001

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Michael W. McCahill
Michael W. McCahill*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Boston Harbor
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Extract

… My Thoughts always return to the Necessity of exercising Politicks in cultivating & protecting & extending our Manufactures as the principal Source for improving our Lands, multiplying our People & increasing & establishing our Commerce & Naval Force.

Samuel Garbett to the Marquess of Lansdowne, 2 October 1786.

Students of the industrial revolution now generally admit what seemed obvious to Samuel Garbett, the Birmingham manufacturer and lobbyist, two hundred years ago; namely, that the state was an important participant in the early phases of the industrial revolution. Many scholars still emphasize the restraint of English government — a restraint which gave relatively free play to natural economic forces and to individual genius, a restraint which also aggravated the social repercussions of so momentous a transformation. But they recognize that entrepreneurs could obtain legal sanction for enclosures, canals, and a myriad of other “improvements' easily and at moderate cost by means of a private act of parliament, and they debate whether existing patent law stimulated invention by providing adequate rewards for the inventor or aimed primarily at discouraging stultifying monopoly. Because the processes of growth in the last decades of the century were so fundamental and pervasive, fiscal, commercial, colonial, and foreign policies were bound to have an impact on the embryonic industrial economy. Whether government by its various acts encouraged or impeded growth is open to debate at a number of levels. There can be no doubt, however, that politicians endeavored, if sometimes slowly and haphazardly, to adapt policy and law to changing conditions and that their decisions did affect the tempo and quality of growth.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Fall 1976 , pp. 84 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1976

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Footnotes

1.

I wish to thank Professor Eric Robinson for reading and criticizing an earlier draft of this article, Mr. Arthur Westwood for allowing me to consult the Boulton Papers at the Birmingham Assay Office, and Earl Spencer for permission to quote from the Spencer Papers at Althorp.

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63. Earl Spencer, for example, told his mother that a meeting of the committee of the Grand Junction Canal had enabled him to,

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64. We know of at least sixty peers who maintained contacts with various industrial communities during these years. However, since this figure more accurately reflects the sources we consulted than contemporary realities, it is not a very reliable indicator of the incidence of this type of patronage within the group.

65. Even his rivals acknowledged that the twelfth Earl of Derby's criticisms of the Irish propositions in 1785 were impressive and forceful (H.M.C., Rutland MSS, III, 229–30Google Scholar). Yet, while he took part in local canal ventures and had his own cotton enterprises, he did not on any other occasion distinguish himself as the advocate of local economic interests.

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68. In 1775, for example, Boulton was largely responsible for raising a petition from Birmingham in support of the American War. He did so at least partly at the instigation of his friend and patron, Lord Dartmouth. Assay Office Library, Birmingham, Dartmouth to Boulton, 19 Jan. 1775, Boulton Papers.

69. The Duke of Portland told Earl Fitzwilliam that if the latter was not in a position to provide direct answers to the applications of the various interests of Yorkshire, representatives of those interests would not look upon the Earl as a powerful figure. In consequence Fitzwilliam would lose much of his authority within the county, an authority which Portland felt it was essential to preserve in the mid-1790s. Sheffield Public Library, Portland to Fitzwilliam, 19 June 1794, Wentworth Woodhouse MSS, F31 (b)/19.

70. The third Earl of Hardwicke, for example, carried the Eau Brink Drainage Bill over the opposition of many of his tenants and political supporters. BM, C. Yorke to Hardwicke, 23 Nov. 1795, Hardwicke Papers, Add. MS 35,392, fols. 255-56. His success was the result of compromise and skillful advocacy. BM, W. Creasy to Hardwicke, 4 Nov. 1792, Hardwicke Papers, Add. MS 25,685, fols. 311-12; Ibid., Hardwicke to Sir Martin Holker, 2 Dec. 1794, Hardwicke Papers, Add. MS 35,686, fols. 113-14.

71. At the general election of 1790 Fitzwilliam was able to return Lord Burford as a member for Hull in part because of his alliance with the proprietors of the local dock. In 1787 the Earl had helped to defeat a bill which would have had the town take over that facility, and during the 1790s he joined with the proprietors in opposing the extension of the dock. Northamptonshire Record Office, W. Hammond to Fitzwilliam, 5 May 1787, Fitzwilliam Papers, Box 34; ibid., Burford to Fitzwilliam, 12 Feb. 1794, Ibid., Box 46; ibid., H. Ethrington to Burford, 15 Sept. 1794, Ibid., Box 46; Jackson, Hull, pp. 250-58. Those who wished to extend the dock facilities received support from the fifth Duke of Leeds who even carried the case to Pitt. BM, Leeds to Pitt, 23 May 1795 (copy), Egerton MSS, Eg. 3506, f. 46; Northamptonshire Record Office, Leeds to Fitz-william, 14 Feb. 1794, Fitzwilliam Papers, Box 46.

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