ABSTRACT
The cotton industry prospered in Renfrewshire and a series of planned industrial towns was built to serve its needs. Certainly very applicable to the driving of cotton mills in every case where the conveniency of planning the mill in a town or ready-built manufactory will compensate for the expense of coals and of our premium. The shift of textile manufacture from cottage to factory led to regional specialization, with cotton dominating in Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire, woollens in the Borders and linen in Fife, Perth-shire and Angus. Alex Brodie, a local blacksmith who had made his fortune in the Shropshire iron trade, stimulated the growth of Innerleithen by building a five-storey woollen mill there in the 1780s. Water-powered woollen mills also led to the creation of new villages at Walkerburn and Earlston, and during the late 1790s a woollen manufactory was established in Peebles.
