ABSTRACT

Industrialisation in England, far from erasing regional differences and heralding the creation of a homogenous national economy, emerged from and reinforced patterns of economic activity and linkages that showed marked spatial variegation. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the industrial economy of England remained a patchwork of industrial districts, clusters and regional systems. While there are those who diminish the importance of this feature of English industrialisation, we would argue that it was central to the broad sweep of the path towards forging an industrialised society. Understanding why these patterns emerged and how they affected the nature and course of industrial and business history in England prompts a search for approaches that take this spatial patterning as a central concern. It also opens up perspectives that have been relatively neglected in the historiography of English business.