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R & D, Defense, and Spatial Divisions of Labor in Twentieth-Century Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Carol E. Heim
Carol E. Heim
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003.
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Abstract

New spatial patterns, with areas specializing by function rather than industry, reflect twentieth-century developments in industrial organization, the role of the state, and Britain's system of cities. In the short run, World War II and postwar regional policy increased factory-building and employment in formerly depressed areas. Longer-run effects of both helped concentrate research and development within the South near London and dispersed routinized production to other areas. Organizational links within firms and to government departments, intellectual and commercial contacts in London, and locational preferences of professional and technical workers influenced R & D location.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 365 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1987

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References

Financial assistance from the American Association of University Women and the University of Massachusetts is gratefully acknowledged. The author also thanks Kenneth Flamm, Susan Helper, John Lovering, David Mowery, Martha Olney, William Parker, Merton J. Peck, David Weiman, and participants in the University of Massachusetts Economic History and Economic Development Workshop for helpful discussion and comments on earlier drafts. A longer and more extensively documented version of the paper is available from the author upon request.Google Scholar

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11 Lovenng, John, “High Technology Industry and Islands of Prosperity: The Locational Effect of the Military Connection in Britain,” paper presented at Anglo-American Workshop on the Growth and Location of High Technology Industry, Cambridge, Eng., 25–27 June 1986. As Lovering emphasizes, however, in aerospace not all the linked R & D and production complexes are in the South.Google Scholar

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21 PRO BT 177/1497, B.D.I.(A) 31/34, “Statement of New Factory Building and Extensions to Existing Factories (5,000 sq. ft. and over) Approved by Panel “A” and Regional Distribution of Industry Panels or for which Industrial Development Certificates Have Been Granted Up to 30th September 1948,” tables I, II, VII, and VIII; Distribution of Industry, Cmd. 7540 (London, 1948), appendix 5;Google ScholarRosenberg, Economic Planning, pp. 100–1, 151;Google ScholarBoard of Trade, Survey of Industrial Development, annually 1933–38 (London, 1934–1939) and “Industrial Development in 1932,” Board of Trade Journal (29 06 1933), pp. i–xvi.Google Scholar The prewar Special Areas included areas in South Wales, West Cumberland, Northumberland and Durham, and Scotland; after World War II the Development Areas also included areas in Wrexham and South Lancashire.

22 PRO CAB 132/23, L.P.(D.I.)(47), Mtg. 3, Mm. 1,26.2.47; PRO CAB 124/650, OCDI, Panel A, Minutes of meetings, 5.3.47 and 18.3.47; PRO CAB 132/23, L.P.(D.I.(47), Mtg. 8, Mm. 5, 8.5.47; PRO CAB 134/130, D.I.(47), Mtg. 2, Mm. 4, 12.12.47; PRO CAB 132/23, L.P.(D.I.)(47), Mtg. 11, Mm. 2, 2.7.47; PRO CAB 132/24, L.P.(D.I.)(47)65, Memorandum by the Joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Scotland, 25.6.47; PRO CAB 124/650, OCDI, Panel A, Minutes of meetings, 1.3.47 and 17.6.47; PRO CAB 132/24, L.P.(D.I.)(47)66 and 101, Note by Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, 11.7.47 and Memorandum by the Paymaster General, 23.9.47; and PRO CAB 132/23, L.P.(D.I.)(47), Mtg. 14, Mm. 3, 24.9.47.Google Scholar

23 PRO CAB 124/654, Case 450, 12.10.45; PRO CAB 124/656, Case 861, 22.1.46; and PRO CAB 124/657, Case 1,080, [c. April 1946].Google Scholar

24 PRO CAB 124/659, Case 1,385, [C. January 1947].Google Scholar

25 PRO CAB 124/658, Case 1,287, 20.9.46. See also cases of North Downs Engineering Co. (PRO CAB 124/649, OCDI, Panel A, Minutes of meeting, 3.12.46) and Dufay-Chromex (PRO CAB 124/660, Case 1,521, 27.6.47; PRO CAB 124/650, OCDI, Panel A, Minutes of meeting, 18.7.47; and PRO CAB 124/661, Case 1,675, 11.2.48).Google Scholar

26 Parsons, The Political Economy of British Regional Policy; PRO CAB 132123, L.P. (D.I.)(47), Mtg. 8, Mm. 5, 8.5.47 and Mtg. 11, Mm. 2, 2.7.47; PRO CAB 124/643–6, OCDI, Panel A, Minutes of meetings, 19.6.45, 23.10.45, 6.11.45, 4.12.45, 8.1.46, 12.2.46.

27 PRO CAB 124/650, OCDI, Panel A, Minutes of meeting, 18.11.47.Google Scholar

28 See the discussion of the light metal fabricating industry in PRO CAB 87/94, D.I.(44), Mtg. 3, Mm. 1, 31.10.44; PRO CAB 87/94, D.I.(47)7, Note by the Minister of Aircraft Production, 26.10.44; PRO CAB 87/15, R(I)(45)1, 5, 7, and 10, Memorandum by the Minister of Aircraft Production and the President of the Board of Trade, 19.1.45, Memorandum by the Minister of Labour and National Service, 12.2.45, Further Memorandum by the Minister of Aircraft Production, 28.2.45, and Report by the Sub-Committee on the Future of the Light Metal Fabricating Industry, 22.3.45.Google Scholar