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Skills and the Diffusion of Innovations from Britain in the Eighteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Peter Mathias
Peter Mathias
Affiliation:
All Souls Collge, Oxford.
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Extract

This paper stems from an initial interest in the relationships between science and technology in the eighteenth century. Hence its concern lies principally with the nature of technical innovation and the sources of technical change during the Industrial Revolution. Exploring the ways in which new technology is diffused can shed light on the nature of technical change itself, which is a complex amalgam of influences governing invention, innovation (the bringing of inventions into productive use) and the diffusion of new techniques. Taking as a topic the diffusion of technology, particularly in machine-making and engineering, between Britain and Europe in the late eighteenth century is thus not meant to be a peg on which to hang wide-ranging animadversions on the differing economic fortunes and pace of advance of Britain and Europe, or a discussion of why industrialization came first and fastest to Britain and lagged elsewhere: it is a much narrower enquiry into seeing what light the processes and difficulties of diffusing new technology cast upon technical change itself at this time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 25 , December 1975 , pp. 93 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1975

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References

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6 There is a large bibliography on this general theme. See surveys in Landes, The Unbound Prometheus; Henderson, W. O., Britain and Industrial Europe, 1750–1870 (3rd edn., Leicester, 1972Google Scholar); Ballot, C., L’introduction du machinisme dans L’industru francaise (Paris, 1923Google Scholar); L’Acquisition des Techniques par Us pays non-initiateurs (Colloques internationaux du CNRS No. 538, Pont á Mousson, 1970) (particularly contributions by Dr. M. Teich and J. Lukasiewicz). The best recent analytical study is to be found in Milward, A. and Saul, S. B., The Economic Development of Continental Europe, 1780–1870 (London, 1973), esp. ch. 3, and pp. 270–87Google Scholar.

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9 For a theoretical exposition of some of these themes in a modern context see Salter, W. E. G., Productivity and Technical Change (2nd edn., Cambridge, 1969)Google Scholar.

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11 For the best survey of recent theory and applications see The Economics of Technical Change, ed. Rosenberg, N. (Harmondsworth, 1971)Google Scholar, with bibliography. Major individual studies are: Mansfield, E., The Economics of Technical Change (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Salter, Productivity and Technical Change; Schmookler, J., Invention and Economic Growth (Cambridge, Mass., 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rogers, E. M., The Diffusion of Innovations (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity, ed. Nelson, R. R. (N.B.E.R., Princeton, 1962)Google Scholar.

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13 See below pp. 109–11.

14 As Arthur Young commented wryly on the lack of progress in completing the Canal du Charolais: ’…it is a truly useful undertaking and therefore left undone; had it been for boring cannon, or coppering men of war, it would have been finished long ago.’ Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788 and 1789 by Arthur Toung, ed. Maxwell, C. (Cambridge, 1950), p. 199Google Scholar.

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16 Senior, N., An Outline of the Science of Political Economy (London, 1836), pp. 193–4Google Scholar. I owe this reference to Miss M. Berg.

17 The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. Hall, A. R. and Hall, M. B. (Madison, Wisc., 1965–1973)Google Scholar.

18 A critical investigation into the economic and financial implications of the patent system in the eighteenth century is still awaited. See Boehm, K., The British Patent System, i (Cambridge, 1967), ch. 2Google Scholar; Roll, E., An Early Experiment in Industrial Organisation (London, 1930), App. viGoogle Scholar; Robinson, E., ‘James Watt and the Law of Patents’, Technology and Culture, xiii (1972Google Scholar).

19 For example: Jars, G., Voyages Métallurgiques (3 vols., Paris, 1781Google Scholar; Fond, F. de St, Voyages en Angleterre… (Paris, 1797)Google Scholar; Henderson, W. O., J. C. Fischer and his Diary of Industrial England, 1814–51 (1966)Google Scholar; Chevalier, J., ‘La Mission de Gabriel Jars dans les Mines et les usines Britanniques en 1764’, Trans, of Newcomen Soc, xxvi (1947–1949)Google Scholar; M. W. Flinn, ‘The travel diaries of Swedish engineers of the eighteenth century as sources of technological history’, ibid., xxxi (1957–59); Henderson, W. O., Industrial Britain under the Regency (London, 1968)Google Scholar.

20 I am grateful to Dr M. Teich for this information. See M. Teich, ‘Diffusion of Steam, Water and Air Power to and from Slovakia during the Eighteenth Century and the Problem of the Industrial Revolution’, in L’Acquisition des Techniques par les pays non-iniliateurs (note 6 above).

21 Casual observations are scattered through many travellers’ diaries, Arthur Young offering a particularly interesting contemporary account of such immigrant enterprise in France in 1787–89. For example: (at Nantes) ‘… to view the establishment of Mr Wilkinson, for boring cannon… Until that well-known English manufacturer arrived, the French knew nothing of the art of casting cannon solid, and then boring them.’; (at Louviers) ‘View the cotton mill here, which is the most considerable to be found in France… It is conducted by 4 Englishmen from some of Mr Arkwright’s mills. Near this town also is a great fabric of copper plates, for bottoming the King’s ships, the whole an English colony.’ Travels in France, pp. 117, 310; and 119.

22 For a brief discussion see Mathias, P., The First Industrial Motion (London, 1969), PP. 134–44Google Scholar.

23 W. H. B. Court, The Rise of the Midland Industries, 1600–1838 (Oxford, 1938), pp. 241–43Google Scholar; Harris, J. R., ‘Copper and Shipping in the Eighteenth Century’, Econ. Hist. Rev., xix (1966)Google Scholar.

24 Ashton, T. S., Iron and Steel in the Industrial Revolution (2nd edn., Manchester 1951), PP. 200–5Google Scholar; Musson, A. E., ‘The Manchester School and the Exportation of Machinery’, Business History, xv (1972)Google Scholar.

25 Payen, J., Capital et machine á vapeur au XVIIIe siécle (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar.

26 Robinson, E., “The International Exchange of Men and Machines 1750–1800’, Business History, i (1958)Google Scholar, reprinted Musson and Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, ch. vi.

27 James Nasmyth Engineer: an Autobiography, ed. Smiles, S. (London, 1883), ch. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

28 ProfessorHarris, J. R. is extending his enquiries into this field, the first results being reported in his inaugural lecture, Industry and Technology in the Eighteenth-Century: Britain and France (Birmingham, 1971)Google Scholar.

29 Some of these intricacies can be inferred from the diary of an informed visitor: The Hatchett Diary: a Tour through…England and Scotland in 1796 visiting their Mines and Manufactories, ed. Raistrick, A. (Truro, 1967), pp. 35–36, 50–51, 58–59. 74–76Google Scholar.

30 A typical individual comment is that of Arthur Young, when visiting the Wilkinson glass factory at Montcenis, in France: ‘I conversed with an Englishman who works in the glass house, in the crystal branch. He complained of the country, saying there was nothing good in it but wine and brandy; of which things I question not but he makes a sufficient use.’ Travels in France, pp. 199–200. See also J. G. la Force, ‘Technological Diffusion in the eighteenth century’ (note 3 above).

31 The Transfer of Technology to Developing Countries, ed. Spencer, D. L. and Woroniak, A. (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Factors in the Transfer of Technology, ed. Gruber, W. H. and Marquis, D. G. (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)Google Scholar; Jones, G., The Role of Science and Technology in Developing Countries (London, 1971)Google Scholar. The latter lists many relevant U.N. and U.N.E.S.C.O. Reports. I think it is still true to say that the problems of ‘embodied’ skills, and training in skills at this level, have been relatively neglected in shaping policies for economic development in less developed countries since 1945. Doubtless there is some connection between this neglect in contemporary development economics and policy and the fact that economic historians have largely taken developing skills for granted in their explanations of industrialization in Western Europe.

32 J. C. la Force, ‘Royal Textile factories in Spain’ (note 3 above).

33 The importance of interrelatedness (more widely considered) is stressed in Frankel, M., ‘Obsolescence and Technical Change in a Maturing Economy’, American Econ. Rev. xxxv, (1955)Google Scholar.

34 Gilfillan, S. G., The Sociology of Invention (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar; Rosenberg, N., ‘Economic Development and the Transfer of Technology: Some Historical Perspectives'; Technology and Culture, xi (1970)Google Scholar; id., The Diffusion of Technology’, Explorations in Econ. Hist., (1973); id., ‘The Direction of Technological Change: inducement Mechanisms and focussing devices', Economic Development and Cultural Change’ (1969); id., ‘Science, Technology and Economic Growth, Econ. Journ., lxxxiv (1974). This article has been much influenced by Professor Rosenberg's work.

35 For a typical example in silk and steel see: Chaloner, W. H., People and Industries (London, 1963), pp. 12–13Google Scholar; Smiles, S., Men of Invention and Industry (London, 1884), pp. 112–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; id. Industrial Biography (London, 1886), pp. 107–9.