Valoración de las actividades en sus resultados

The expansion of Birmingham and Sheffield from the late-seventeenth century paved the way for a proliferation of new producers, products and processes. Birmingham’s population more than doubled in just a generation in the middle of the eighteenth

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century, passing from 15,000 in 1730 to 35,000 in 1760.4 _{It developed its status as a}

manufacturing centre, home to inventors and innovators who successfully competed in the national and international metalware trades. Whilst its population was still smaller than a number of other major towns, including London, Bristol, Exeter and Norwich, Birmingham’s population was unusual in that it was overwhelmingly employed in the metalware trades.5 _{According to John Taylor and Samuel Garbett,}

local manufacturers, out of its population of 35,000 in 1760, as many as 20,000 people worked in the toy trade.6 _{By the late-eighteenth century, Birmingham had developed}

into one of the largest and most successful manufacturing towns in Europe. The reputation of Birmingham’s products shifted from poor-quality ‘brummagem’ ware to good-quality ‘Birmingham’ ware.7 Sheffield similarly developed a reputation for quality, particularly in the cutlery trade. Like Birmingham, its population expanded in the eighteenth century, from 3,500 in 1700 to 12,000 in 1750.8 _{At least 468 people}

worked ‘in the silver way in Sheffield’, and became known for their quality and capacity to innovate.9

4 _{Eric Hopkins, Birmingham:The First Manufacturing Town in the World 1760-1840}

(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989), 31.

5 _{Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial}

Town, 1660-1770 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 8.

6 _{Parliamentary Papers Online, Journal to the House of Commons 1757-61, 496. (20 March}

1759); and Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends who made the Future, 1730-1810

(London: Faber and Faber, 2002), 64.

7 _{Eric Delieb, The Great Silver Manufactory: Matthew Boulton and the Birmingham}

Silversmiths 1760-1790 (London: Studio Vista, 1971), 40; and Jennifer Tann, Birmingham Assay Office, 1773-1993 (Birmingham: Francis Lomas Ltd, 1993), 15.

8 _{Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance, 27.}

9 _{Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/88/12, ‘Committee on Petitions Relating to}

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The rise of the metalware trades in Birmingham and Sheffield has long captured the interest of historical research. Both regions have been subject to local studies, which have charted their expansion and the key players involved.10 This has been seen in the wider context of regional development and proto-industrialisation, in which Birmingham is said to have gone through an ‘industrial enlightenment’ from the early-eighteenth century.11 _{Eighteenth-century Sheffield, and its producers, have}

received less attention in recent years, but have also been seen as part of a wider discussion of specialisation and quality production.12 _{Not only has this been of interest}

to those who focus on business history and the development of successful manufacturing firms and marketing strategies, but also to historians of technology, who have questioned whether the technical skill and innovation of Birmingham and Sheffield producers was the reason for their rise.13

Some historians have been less positive about the success of Birmingham and Sheffield, and have suggested that regional producers were unsuccessful in their development of their metalware trades, made little profit and did not produce quality metalware. Kenneth Quickenden has argued that the silver trade in these regions was unprofitable, the partnership between Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill was

10 _{Historians have particularly focused upon Matthew Boulton, for example: Shena Mason,}

ed., Matthew Boulton: Selling What All the World Desires (Birmingham: Yale University Press, 2009); and Delieb, The Great Silver Manufactory, 15.

11 _{Peter M. Jones, Industrial Enlightenment: Science, Technology and Culture in}

Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760-1820 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008).

12 _{Geoffrey Tweedale, Steel City: Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Technology in Sheffield}

1743-1993 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).

13 _{Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, La Pièce et le Geste: Artisans, Marchands et Savoir Technique à}

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disorganised, and producers continued to manufacture substandard ware.14 _Others

have pointed to the failure of Boulton’s production and marketing of ormolu, a newly developed alloy that was imitative of gold.15 Within a century, the metalware trades in Birmingham and Sheffield did decline when they faced changing consumer demand and the increasing preference for pottery and glass. Of the largest manufacturers in Birmingham, Boulton moved on from the silverware and toy trades in the nineteenth century to develop steam engines in partnership with James Watt, and Samuel Garbett became bankrupt in 1782. Nevertheless, producers across the region were able to develop their reputation for innovation and quality from the late-seventeenth century onwards. Moreover, this does not detract from the important questions that are raised by their expansion, the success of their integration of new materials and consumer goods into the marketplace, and their impact on the changing definition of quality.

Research has questioned why regional manufacturing towns emerged and has investigated the reasons for the clustering of producers within particular trades or specialisms.16 Within the silver trade in England, there had been Assay Offices in London, Chester, York, Exeter, Norwich and Newcastle, which made them the most likely centres for the trade.17 Until 1773, there were no Assay Offices in Sheffield or

14 _{Kenneth Quickenden, “Boulton and Fothergill Silver,” Unpublished PhD Thesis,}

Westfield College, 1990; and Kenneth Quickenden, “Boulton and Fothergill Silver: Business Plans and Miscalculations,” Art History 5/3 (1980): 274-296.

15 _{Nicholas Goodison, “Ormolu Ornaments,” in Matthew Boulton: Selling What All the}

World Desires, ed. Shena Mason (Birmingham: Yale University Press, 2009), 55-63.

16 _{Pat Hudson, ed., Regions and Industries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989);}

and John F. Wilson and Andrew Popp, eds., Industrial Clusters and Regional Business Networks in England, 1750-1970 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).

17 _{See chapter 1 of this thesis; and Parliamentary Papers Online, Report from the Committee}

Appointed to Enquire into the Manner of Conducting the Several Assay Offices in London, York, Exeter, Bristol, Chester, Norwich and Newcastle upon Tyne, 1773, 8.

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Birmingham, which therefore leads us to question why they emerged as important manufacturing towns. On the whole, regional clusters of producers can be seen to have two main causes. Firstly, geographic factors, such as the proximity to mines, rivers or transport networks, were crucial for the success of the production processes that required them and so attracted clusters of producers within a trade. However, increasingly from the seventeenth century, the natural landscape was being adapted to benefit manufacturing districts, for example with the construction of canals, waterways, and other improvement projects, which improved transport links and fuelled water-wheels.18 However, proximity to water power was more important in the textile than in the metalware trades. In Matthew Boulton’s Soho Manufactory near Birmingham, a mill pool was constructed to ensure a reservoir of water during the summer months, but because of the expense, producers often relied on turning rollers by hand in the production of metal goods rather than using water-power.19

The second, and more important, reason for clustering, was the social and economic advantages of co-operation with other producers.20 Typically, co-operation between producers was enforced through the regulation of the trade by the guilds.21 Historians often credit the success of Birmingham to the fact that its activities were carried out outside guild control, which some historians believe stifled innovation.22

18 _{Jones, Industrial Enlightenment, 25.}

19 _{Quickenden, “Boulton and Fothergill Silver,” 105.}

20 _{Lucy Newton, “Capital Networks in the Sheffield Region, 1850-1885,” in Industrial}

Clusters and Regional Business Networks in England, 1750-1970, ed. John F. Wilson and Andrew Popp (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 130.

21 _{See chapters 1 and 2.}

22 _{Pat Hudson, “Industrial Organization and Structure,” in The Cambridge Economic History}

of Modern Britain. Volume 1: Industrialisation, 1700-1860, ed. Roderick Floud and Paul Johnson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 32; and Marie B. Rowlands,

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Neither town was a corporate town and remained mostly out of reach of the regulation and search capacity of the London guilds.23 However, neither Birmingham or Sheffield existed completely outside formal and informal regulation and quality control, especially those who worked with silver. Moreover, co-operation between producers could be mutually beneficial, both inside and outside guild control. Francesca Carnevali rightly argued that a producer’s propensity towards co-operation was the result of a business decision, and not something that was expected.24 Therefore, producers with similar interests often chose to group together socially, economically and geographically, both within institutions such as the guilds and less formal networks. They shared skills, resources, and expertise. This contributed to the expansion of the trade, and the introduction of new people, products and processes.

The expanding market for metalware instigated a thriving export trade. The success of the regional manufacturing towns, and their reputation for quality and innovation, ensured their ability to compete internationally. A significant proportion of Birmingham and Sheffield metalware was exported. For instance, the annual value of the toy trade in Birmingham was £600,000, 5/6 of which was exported.25 By 1786, the hardware export trade was valued at £1.5 million by Samuel Garbett.26 Producers in Birmingham and Sheffield were especially successful in their export trade, and toys

Masters and Men in the West Midland Metalware Trades before the Industrial Revolution

(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975), 96.

23 _{As explored in chapters 1 and 2.}

24 _{Francesca Carnevali, “Crooks, Thieves, and Receivers: Transaction Costs in Nineteenth-}

Century Industrial Birmingham,” Economic History Review 57/3 (2004): 533-550.

25 _{Uglow, The Lunar Men, 64.}

26 _{British Library, Add MS 34462, Auckland Papers, Vol. LI., ‘Evidence for a Commercial}

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to the value of £100,000 were exported annually.27 _{In particular, it was the thriving}

buckle and toy trades that were successfully exported, as producers ‘have little export to Europe in the coarser goods but in the finer it has increased to all parts of Europe’.28 As shown by Figure 3.1, the greatest proportion of hardware was exported to France by 1786.29

Figure 3.1: Chart Showing the Proportion of Hardware Goods that were Exported to Different Countries from Britain in 1786.

Source: Data taken from the testimony of Samuel Garbett. British Library, Add MS 34462, Auckland Papers, Vol. LI., Evidence for a commercial treaty with France, 1786, 128-129.

Significant amounts of metalware were also exported to Germany, Spain and Russia (Figure 3.1). Therefore, the stakes were high for producers and there was a great

27 _{Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/89/10, ‘Considerations upon the Petition of the}

Workers in Silver in the Towns of Birmingham & Sheffield for an Assayer to be Established in those Places’, f. 3.

28 _{British Library, Add MS 34462, Auckland Papers, Vol. LI., ‘Evidence for a Commercial}

Treaty with France’, 1786, ff. 133-134.

29 _{Ibid, ff. 128-129.} France 31% Spain 15% Germany 23% Russia 15% Portugal, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden 12% America 4% France Spain Germany Russia

Portugal, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden

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potential to benefit from the expanding market for metalware, nationally and internationally. Especially in the expanding regional manufacturing towns of Birmingham and Sheffield, producers were at the forefront of the metalware trade, and pushed the boundaries of the size of the trade, and the variety, quantity and quality of the metalware that could be produced.