6 - The Social Life of the Engineer

Summary

Any snapshot of a northern manufacturing centre between 1770 and 1850 will reveal a wide assortment of ventures, comfortably out of step with one another. Manual worked alongside mechanical, large and coordinated workplaces neighboured upon small and traditional shops, goods were shipped around the world and also served very local consumption, production systems were quite at odds.

Because change was not linear, nor did it move in discrete stages, each and every industrial district accommodated many points of difference. Disparate environments co-existed successfully because commercial and individual connections allowed them to do so. If knowledge and resources were not immediately on hand, then within the circle of acquaintance would be a means to locate what was needed. Local economies whose component parts were fascinatingly variable contained many elements of mutual dependence, constant transaction between ancient and modern.

From this, certain localities emerged so strongly, so closely identified with a particular occupation, that their specialism was almost impenetrable by others. Peter Fairbairn, employer of 550 workers and £50,000 to £60,000 in capital, explained in 1841 that making cotton machines was so ‘thoroughly localized’ in Manchester, and likewise flax-machinery in Leeds, that ‘It is very difficult to obtrude any other places afterwards, from their possessing all the requisite information, which puts them in a superior position as compared with almost any other place.’ Flax-preparing centres in Scotland and Belfast, like Leeds itself, were almost wholly served by Leeds machinery.

Defined by their contrasting products and customers, specialized almost from the start, each engineering centre was unique and distinct. There were also significant common features, with many mutual and overlapping interests and affairs. At such points, where textile engineers met and mixed – formally and otherwise – with each other and the wider world, rested the soul of the trade. How did social exchanges connect into industrial life? And does this social context enable the trade's ethos to be in any way re-captured? In this of all industries, the culture, its levels of collaboration and mutual support (or otherwise), is weighted with great significance. The answers to why machinemaking advanced as it did are rooted in social relations and individual aspirations, in a world of increasing complexity.