ABSTRACT
Most industrial enterprises still served just a regional, if not a local, demand and their products were sold through markets, fairs and local carriers, few of which drew on so extensive a hinterland as the famous Stourbridge Fair. Daniel Defoe’s Tour Through England and Wales of 1724 indicates how a national market for manufactured goods was already developing, but it must be remembered that he was particularly interested in what was new, not in what was commonplace. Difficulties of transport hindered the sale of goods much beyond the region, and so the production of basic necessities was replicated throughout the country. The making of boots and shoes was practised in all communities, as was brewing and malting. Agriculture did not often provide a sufficient livelihood and many families resorted to industrial by-employment. Joan Thirsk has drawn attention to the fact that the type of farming practised was important in locating a particular industry. The wood pasture regions of both Suffolk
and Wiltshire, specialising in dairying, had extensive cloth industries: they were also areas populated by small freeholders or customary tenants with security of tenure, which was also true of the Yorkshire Dales. The hosiery industry of the East Midlands developed in areas of pastoral rather than arable farming, often after previously open field areas were enclosed and laid down to grass in the late eighteenth century. The wooded parishes of the West Midlands were early centres of small metalworking. Most metalliferous mining was located in the west and north of Britain where a pastoral economy predominated and there was little demand for agricultural labour, making such dual employment possible.1
