ABSTRACT
In the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century the cotton industry entered the second major phase of its development, having played a leading and well-known role in the British industrialisation in the half century prior to 1825. During this earlier phase of growth, the characteristic feature of the industry had been the rapid growth of factory-based spinning, with an extensive accumulation of plant and capital equipment. The weaving section of the industry still retained the organisation and technology of pre-industrial days founded upon the handloom. While exports had not been negligible, even in the difficult and hazardous days of the French Wars which spanned, almost without a break, the two decades before 1815, the home market generated the main stimulus to growth in that period. During the period which provides the context for this chapter, one of the prime features of the development of the cotton industry was the integration of weaving into the new industrial order of factory production, and the consequent decline and disappearance of the oft-lamented handloom weaver. Furthermore, exports provided an increasing share of rising returns from business and were important in stimulating significant and permanent structural changes in the organisation of the industry.
