ABSTRACT
This chapter utilises the opportunity presented by the giving of an L. T. C. Rolt memorial lecture to make a first general overview of the importance of industrial espionage in the transfer of technology in the eighteenth century, and particularly that carried out by France. The fascinating, compelling richness of French industrial history sources, primarily the records of the Bureau of Commerce in the national archives. The chapter makes some studies of British industries in the early eighteenth century in which coal-based technologies were a novel element, and critical in their development in the late 1960s. French industrial espionage was overwhelmingly concentrated on Britain, and by mid-century the first response to learning of British inventions was to acquire them by covert means, rather than 'e-invent what had already been discovered by the English'. The industries selected were the plate-glass industry, the Birmingham hardware industry and the steel industry.
