ABSTRACT
The careers of John Holkers from the late 1760s have an interesting complementarity. The son took on the arduous duties of the fieldwork, whether industrial espionage in Britain or tours in France. The young Holker, appointed as 'adjoint' to his father in 1768, made another visit to England within a few years; he seems to have spent much of 1770 in England, returning home by the end of the year. In May 1773 Holker II was ordered by Terray, the controller-general, to make a tour of central France and the Midi, where he was to be mainly concerned with textiles, with the means of improvement of existing manufactures and with suggesting potential areas for development. In view of the future history of the region some of Holker's advice and encouragement may now seem over-optimistic, but he was urging the industrialists of Languedoc to take every advantage of new coal-mining developments whose extent, quality and cost were still to be discovered.
