The <early industrial revolution> and the industrial structure of Tudor and Early Stuart England

Abstract

In England there was a drastic industrialization during the latter half of Elizabeth's and Early Stuarts' reigns. It was called by Professor J. U. Nef "an early industrial revolution", in contrast with the "Industrial Revolution" after the last decades of the eighteenth century. In the former period the progress of technology and the growth of large-scale industry were common in many newly introduced industries and some native ones, especially mining and metallurgy, though except the great part of handicrafts. These changes took place, combined with the rapid progress of coal industry which was caused by the famous fuel scarcity. Merchants, gentlemen and courtiers, with capital to invest in those industries, set up works on a large scale, either by the grant of royal privileges or by the lordship of manor. It meant that these industrial managements were privileged=monopolistic and combined with the interest of the governing classes. Furthermore, the massive gangs of workers in them, being recruited from socially 'outcasted' vagabonds and bondsmen, etc., were miserably and helplessly obliged to obey the merciless working rules, with nothing of their own fraternities (bond system). The absolute governors of Tudors and Early Stuarts intended to compose all of industries in the following two systems. Handicrafts and husbandry were formally to be regulated by Acts of Parliament and super intended by local public agencies (justices of peace and their subordinate officials) in every county ; while the control of the aforesaid large-scale industries, often immure from the application of Acts and the superintendence of the public agencies, were formally to belong to the royal Prerogative (or the privilege of its contractor) or the lordship of monor. The role of the latter in this composition was to secure the economic independence by supplementing the weak parts of the industrial structure of England, especially the industries providing military stores and some raw materials for woollen manufacturing, and further to strengthen the foreign trade system of England relied on the encouragement of woollen exportation. These privileged-monopolistic large-scale industries and the aforesaid industrial structure, however, were radically destroyed at the Civil War, as a result of the famous antimonopoly campaigns, and the 'early industrial revolution' also ended.