17th Century and Industrial Revolution

Seventeenth Century and Industrial Revolution
Seventeenth century Ireland
Bartletts map from 1602.
Ireland enters the 17th century in a state of war.
This is to set the tone for much of the century.

The Rise of Europe & Imperialism con’t
Until 18th century, Europe lagged behind Asia and parts of Africa in economic development.
2 groups of factors set stage for modern economic growth and socio-political change
300 years between 14th and 17th centuries
Renaissance and Enlightenment (eventually leading to industrialisation)
European geographical expansionism

The Rise of Europe & Imperialism
Geographical Expansionism
seen as the mercantile phase of Imperialism
Enormous profits from seafaring and conquests
exploitation of technological backward non-European people (ideological justified as ‘civilising mission’)
Slave trade; Spice trade; Precious metals; exotic goods. Atlantic trade. Footholds established.
New expressions of wealth
Ole Worm’s Cabinet of Curiosities, Denmark 1655

The new found European success opens up the opportunity to collect exotica as way of illustrating the breadth of connections, wealth and power.
The Rise of Europe and Imperialism
Mercantile Imperialism
primitive accumulation (Marx);
booty capitalism (Weber);
superiority of force of Europeans “… enabled to commit every sort of injustice in those remote countries” (A. Smith).
European Renaissance & Enlightenment had created an explosion of intellectual, scientific and artistic achievements; leading to political ideas and change by the seventeenth century.
The Rise of Europe and Imperialism
During 300 years:
no significant change in European economy and society
wealth used to fight wars;
Intensifying mercantilism to raise revenues for warfare.
Also leads to extravagant consumption.
Consumption?
Versailles (Pierre Patel 1668).
Hunting Lodge built by Le Roy in 1631 (Louis XIII).
In 1661, Louis XIV had a huge rural retreat built here, with the most extensive gardens in the world.
By 1682, he moved his court to Versailles.
English Palladian Architecture
Queen’s House, built by Inigo Jones 1614-17 for Anne of Denmark (wife of James I) at Greenwich (beside the Palace of Greenwich).
His first building in a ‘Palladian’ style following his tour of Italy.
Introduced a classical style to English architecture.
Queen’s Palace Greenwich
This is one of Jones original plans for the façade.
The work was completed in 1635
Classical Architecture
Ground plan of the original Queen’s House (the first storey is on the right of the diagram).
Only really hosted the court until 1642 when the culture it was designed for largely disappeared in England.
Palace of Whitehall
London home of English monarchs from the 16th century.
Under James I a new Banqueting House (1619-1622) was built to a design by Inigo Jones at a cost of £15,618.
Its decoration was finished in 1634 with the completion of a ceiling by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, commissioned by Charles I (later executed in front of the building in 1649).
Jones and the Banqueting Hall
Jones confirmed his re-invention of classical architecture in England with the building.
He was heavily influenced by Italian architecture and ignored existing Jacobean forms.
Jones proposed re-design of Whitehall
Charles I commissioned a complete re-design from Jones in 1638 to incorporate the Banqueting Hall and to be built in the same style.
Ultimately, Charles could never resource the project adequately.
Rathfarnham
Plan of castle built by Archbishop Loftus in 1590.
Note the defensive features such as the corner towers (Loftus lived at the Palace at Tallaght when it was sacked in 1589).
The buildings still owe much to traditional medieval architectural styles.
Classical Architecture
A fire destroyed the rambling Palace of Whitehall in 1698 and the Banqueting Hall was one of the few buidlings to survive (see Peter Paul Ruben’s ceilings).
While the classical style was viewed as Royalist, following the Restoration (post-1660) it was the favoured building style in England.
Backdrop to these developments?
The Wars of Religion, France (1562-1598)
End with Huguenots gain political equality of sorts.
Catalonia (to 1640s)
Revolts against Spain and Barcelona, Portugal tries to regain independence from Spain
The Fronde revolts in France (1648-1653)
Messes in the Netherlands (to 1640s)
Originally a revolt against Spain, the Netherlands got drawn into the shifting allegiances of European politics
The English Civil Wars (1625-1649)
The Thirty Years War (1618-1648)
Ended in Peace of Westphalia (modern diplomacy)
The emerging modern world: Tulips!
Introduced to Europe in the mid-16th century from Ottoman Empire.
Started 1593 when botanist Charles de l'Écluse had taken up a post at the University of Leiden and demonstrated that tulip bulbs would grow in the Netherlands.
Became a luxury item, classified in groups; one-coloured tulips of red, yellow, or white were known as Couleren, but it was the multicoloured Rosen (red or pink on white background), Violetten (purple or lilac on white background), and, to a lesser extent, the Bizarden (red, brown or purple on yellow background) that were the most popular.
The Tulip Bubble
In 1634 the rage for tulips among the Dutch was so great that the ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the whole people turned to the production of tulips. As this mania increased, prices increased with it, until in 1635 merchants were known to have spent $40,000 in the purchase of forty tulips.
The Semper Augustus
A Semper Augustus, weighing only 200 grains, was thought to be cheap at $2200.
An inferior plant would readily sell for $800.
When first known, in 1636, there were only two roots of it in Holland: one belonged to a dealer in Amsterdam, and the other was owned in Haarlem.
One person offered twelve acres of valuable building land for the Haarlem tulip.
That of Amsterdam was sold for $1840, a new carriage, two gray horses, and a complete suit of harness.
Tulip-mania
A bill of sale for one single root of the Viceroy species:

Anatomy of a bubble
The demand grow until 1636.
Regular marts for their sale were opened on the Stock Exchange of Amsterdam, and at Haarlem, Leiden, and other places.
Symptoms of gambling and of time sales soon became prevalent every where. Stock-jobbers dealt largely in tulips - at first every thing rose and every body gained.
Tulip jobbers gambled on the rise and fall of bulbs, making large profits by buying when prices were low and selling when they rose.
It was believed that this mania would spread to other lands.
Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, footmen, and even chimney-sweeps dabbled in tulips. Houses and lands were offered at ruinously low rates that their proceeds might be invested in bulbs that were expected to return a golden crop.
The prices of the necessaries of life rose, and houses and lands, horses and carriages, and luxuries of every sort rose with the rise of tulips: all commerce rested on a flower bed.
The Collapse
In 1636, the Dutch created a type of formal futures markets where contracts to buy bulbs at the end of the season were bought and sold.
Traders met in "colleges" at taverns and buyers were required to pay a 2.5% "wine money" fee, up to a maximum of three florins, per trade.
Neither party paid an initial margin nor a mark-to-market margin, and all contracts were with the individual counterparties rather than with the exchange.
No deliveries were ever made to fulfill these contracts because of the market collapse on 5th February 1637.
Banking
Banking continued to develope in the 17th century.
In England, commercial lending of money became more important.
Previously goldsmiths lent and changed money until, in 1640 King Charles I confiscated gold, which London merchants had deposited at the mint for safety.
Afterwards people began to deposit money with goldsmiths who gave receipts for the gold in the form of notes promising to pay on demand.
Banking
Governments needed to borrow, especially in wartime, often from wealthy individuals and later repaid them with interest from taxation.
However at the end of the 17th century the cost of fighting a war with France was colossal. So in 1694 the Bank of England was founded to provide a loan to the government.
A group of financiers put up £1.2 million. In return the bank received 8% interest on the loan and the right to issue notes. The Bank of England was also allowed to lend money and to buy and sell gold.
Rising Costs of Warfare: Artillery
The combining of shot and powder into a single unit, a cartridge, occurred in the 1620s with a simple fabric bag.
Gustavus Adolphus is identified as the general who reintroduced cannon to the battlefield - pushing the development of much lighter and smaller weapons and deploying them in far greater numbers than previously. But the outcome of battles was still determined by the clash of infantry.
Fixed fortifications were obsolete unless heavily fortified and defended.

Development of Artillery Fortifications
Marquis de Vauban, adviser to Louis XIV, major figure in late-17th century development of artillery fortifications.

Galway, 1651
Proper artillery defences required significant expenditure in the sevententh century.
Draught of proposed citadel at Dublin in 1685, by Thomas Phillips
Draught of proposed citadel at Belfast (also 1685), by Thomas Phillips
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Development of Artillery Fortifications
Charles Fort, Kinsale
Built after 1677, incorporates latest styles of defences.
Charles Fort, Kinsale
Phillips plans show how quickly these forts were being elaborated.
August 1691
Seventeenth Century Crisis?
Eric Hobsbawn portrays this as a crisis in the old colonial system and in internal production.
Wealth had grown too fast, and was put to unproductive uses, particularly by a waste full aristocracy.
The “crisis” brought about a new concentration of capital and cleared the way for the industrial revolution (Europe’s economy was healthier and more “progressive” when it recovered in the late seventeenth century) from the end of the seventeenth century.
Court vs. Country: Hugh Trevor-Roper
As the Courts grew, they generated increasing resentment among those left outside the charmed circle, not only because “outsiders” always dislike “insiders” but also because these particular “insiders” were seen as especially vulgar and distasteful.
Society clashed with the State, and the overweening central power was either brought down or rationally re-organized.
Rise of Europe and Imperialism
It is generally agreed that the Industrial Revolution began in England and spread to Western Europe
geographical proximity;
shared history;
similar institutions,
traditions and values
all benefited from exploitation of faraway peoples.
Adam Smith: wealth and prosperity of Europe due to the ‘dreadful misfortunes’ of non-Europeans.
Balance-of-Trade Doctrine
Colonial ventures by Europeans are often misunderstood as a means by which they gained sources of wealth alone.
They also gained and developed markets.
“The ordinary means... to encrease our wealth and treasure is by Forraign Trade, wherein wee must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than wee consume of theirs in value.”
- Thomas Mun, England’s Treasure
by Forraign Trade (1664)
Thomas Mun (1571-1641)
Director, East India Company
East India Company’s purchase of goods resulted in export of bullion
A Discourse of Trade (1621)
England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade (likely written in 1620s, pub. 1664)
Wealth as produced commodities; monetary movements depend upon condition of trade balance
Domestic trade zero-sum; international trade is the source of national wealth and power
Money wages must be kept low in order to stimulate labor to be productive
Low interest rates to encourage industry
Profits arise from buying cheap, selling dear
Josiah Child (1630-1699)
Governor, East India Company
Member of Parliament
Brief Observations Concerning Trade and Interest of Money (1668)
Reprinted anon. with minor additions as Discourse about Trade (1690) and as A New Discourse of Trade (1693)
Reduction of the legal interest rate in England from 6 percent to 4 percent
began by citing reasons for the wealth of Dutch Republic
argued that low interest rate in the Dutch Republic was primary cause of Dutch wealth
argued that past reductions in legal limit in England had been followed by increased English wealth
Sir William Petty (1623-1687)
Doctor of Medicine, Oxford, 1648
Professor of Anatomy, Oxford, 1650
Chair of Music, Gresham College, 1651
Served in Cromwell’s Army in Ireland, 1651-3
Medical officer; topographical surveyor; ended with large Irish estate
Founding member of Royal Society
Primary works:
A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (1662)
The Political Arithmetick (1690)
The Political Anatomy of Ireland (1691)
Sir William Petty (1623-1687)
Sophisticated discussion of land and rents
natural rent is the surplus of corn
identifies this quantity with the natural surplus of silver mining (rate of returns are equalized)
argues that all things ought to be naturally valued in land or labor
uses rental value as basis for capital value of land
finally, notes that the interest is to the amount of money lent as the amount of rent is to the land that can be bought with money lent
John Law (1671-1729)
Money and Trade Considered; with a Proposal for Supplying the Nation with Money (1705)
Economic depression due to shortage of metallic money; requires paper currency as substitute
Money is Credit, Credit based in confidence
Money supply should be related to needs of trade
Expansion of money supply will permanently increase output and employment without raising prices
The interest rate is the price of money’s use; changes in the money supply affect interest rates and therefore investment
John Law (1671-1729)
Exiled to Europe
French debt massive & finances in dissaray as consequence of Louis XIV’s wars and policies
Regent Duke d’Orleans in Paris
1716, establishes Banque Générale
1717, establishes Compaigne d’Occident (Mississippi Company)
1718, Bank Générale becomes Banque Royale, and Mississippi Company absorbs other trading companies
1719, Massive note inflation and Stock market bubble in Company shares
Early 1720, Company and Banque united
Mid-1720, Price of shares collapse as exchange rate collapses due to bank-note inflation
Early Industry from 1600 to 1800
Cottage industry located “on-site” – proximity to energy sources.
Creates “Industrial hamlets”
Site specific advantages:
Mining
Water or wind power
Workforce
Better transportation on good roads, then canals
Iron, the source of early military power meant that ironworks are a key strategic resource
Sheffield and Newcastle
Abbeydale
Industrial Hamlet in Sheffield, Yorkshire
The Tilt Forge Wheel
Typical iron forge, small scale, based on water power.
Sheffield
Dependency on water power can be seen in the distribution of forges sites along the rivers around Sheffield.
From the author of Robinson Crusoe

This town of Sheffield is very populous and large, the streets narrow, and the houses dark and black, occasioned by the continued smoke of the forges which are always at work.
Here they make all sorts of cutlery-ware, but especially that of edge tools, knives, razors, axes etc. and nails; and here the only mill of the sort, which was in use in England for some time, was set up, for turning their grindstones.
The manufacture of hard ware is ... much increased... and they talk of 30000 men employed in the whole.

from A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe published in 1724


Sheffield and Newcastle?
How do you manage to move industry to economically favourable locations?
Free up site-specific machinery and energy sources such as woodfuel, coal, water and wind.
Ongoing deforestation.
Crowing on rivers.
Difficulty of deep-mining coal.

Newcomen’s mine engine: Original diagram

Coal Mining at Newcastle
“Sea Coal” from Newcastle
Driven by deforestation of England, 1600s, 1700s
Required energy to pump water from deep shafts
Required centralized, organized labor force: capitalism, unions
The Industrial Revolution
A revolution recognized by 1820
Changes occurred rather suddenly
Changes in the workplace
In 1860, Britain produced 20% of the entire world’s output of industrial goods
Two “caveats”
--scope of the revolution
--impact of the revolution
The Essential Nature of the Industrial Revolution
Dates vary according to nation
18th century origins
expanding Atlantic economy
flourishing English agriculture
effective central bank and credit system
stable and predictable government
mobile rural wage earners
Cotton Manufacturing in Manchester
Great location
By-product of overseas trade:
1 million bags of cotton imported into Liverpool in 1825
Various factors created a tremendous opportunity
New Technology
James Hargreaves’ “Spinning Jenny” (1765)
Richard Arkwright’s Water Frame (1769)
James Watt’s Steam Engine (1790’s)
Significance of the Steam Engine
Requires a specialized facility for its use near a ready source of coal
But definitively changed the location of factories, freeing the factory to be located in the most economical location
Economic Explosion Mixed with Fear
Availability of cotton clothing to all
Temporary bottlenecks meant higher wages for British weavers
Edmund Cartwright’s power loom (1785)
The cityscape of Manchester was dramatically transformed by 1800
New machines and factories were both fascinating and horrifying
The “Crowning” Invention: The Railroad
Superior to canals
The world’s first railway line ran from Manchester to Liverpool.
The first locomotive = The “Rocket” (1830)
Revolution in land transportation = dropping prices
Laborers shift to the city and factories
Cultural changes produced
A “feedback” mechanism
The Free Market
Transportation advances broke down traditional local markets
Significance of economic freedom
abolition of the Corn Laws in 1846
A free market in labor
The main goal = profit
Praise for the free market
Criticism: A sense of destruction and alienation
The Industrial Revolution on the Continent
Industrialized in a different pattern than Britain
Later industrialization as you move east
Entered industrialization at an advanced stage
Railroads and banks were instrumental
“State-managed capitalism”
Friedrich List’s Zollverein (Customs Union)
Continental Industrialization
Delayed industrialization was more explosive
Process of industrialization is far from automatic
Competition from cheap British goods
Complicated technology
Expensive technology
Shortage of laborers
Authorities suspicious at first
The New Working Class (cont)
Early attempts to organize workers
Combination Acts, 1799
1834 attempt at a national labor union by Robert Owen
Chartist movement, 1830’s and 1840’s

The New Working Class (cont)
Working conditions
long hours
unbroken routine
“Separate Spheres” for married and single women
Labor Discipline
Fines
low wages
Thomas Malthus (dangers of population growth)
David Ricardo and the “Iron Law of Wages” (trend is towards keeping labour population constant)
The New Working Class
“Speed up and stretch out” (faster machines, workers further apart)
Employment of women and children
Subcontracting to minimize risk of costs
Workers subjected to real danger
The notion of “hands” (de-humanization of workers).
Living Conditions in New Factory Cities
The symbolism of the West End and East End
Enormous population shifts
Problems of disease, alcoholism and crime
Occupied “row houses” near factories
No rise in “real” wages until after 1850
Middle-class reform efforts
Evolves into modern class politics and the crises of the twentieth century.