ABSTRACT
The highly competitive, atomistic character of the woollen (as distinct from the worsted) textile industry of the West Riding of Yorkshire in the early nineteenth century is well recognised in the accepted economic history of the period, but the fact that an oligopolistic market structure was also strongly established in an important branch of the industry’s activity before 1850 seems to have received scant attention in the published literature. The purchase of blankets and heavy woollen cloths for public use by the government departments (chiefly the Navy Board and the Board of Ordnance) represented an important segment of the domestic demand impinging upon the industry during the three decades following 1820, 1 but the special features of the public buying of woollen textiles were such that only a relatively small number of cloth-making enterprises were induced to share regularly in the risks and profits associated with direct tendering. The primary and secondary economic effects flowing from this development were by no means negligible, and it is the purpose of this article to examine some of the important aspects of government contracting in this industry, as revealed by the surviving business archives of a large Yorkshire blanket-making firm; 2 to assess the influence exerted by the government buyers in promoting or retarding the efficiency of the industry; and to draw some general conclusions pertaining to competition and economic development.
