ABSTRACT
The evidence does not point to the generation of great local provincial demand; rather it suggests a growth of the domestic market and of those abroad. Physically, these markets appear to have been located either in London itself, or (reached through the gateway of London) overseas. The metal industries in general, Ralph Davis has commented, had increased in value almost to match the output of the woollen industries by the 1770s: ‘it was growing demand derived largely from the American colonies that pulled the metal industries forward during the rst threequarters of the eighteenth century; and an increasing output made it possible to secure considerable economies from division of labour, and this lowering of costs was able to stimulate demand further.’4 The success of the business of instrument production outside London, as shown in previous chapters, had much
1 McKendrick (1982), 9. 2 Fine and Leopold (1993), 73.
