ABSTRACT
Work was organised by much more irregular temporal patterns prior to the accurate and sustainable measurement of time by clocks, patterns which reflected the agricultural and cottage-based nature of work in pre-industrial society. In this context time was a natural rather than a mathematical phenomena, measured by such things as the rising and falling of the sun or the tides and the changing of the seasons, in which work was ordered by the day's tasks: the need to milk the cows, spin wool, gather the harvest, etc. The irregular nature of work in pre-industrial society meant that people had a surplus of time. Exercising the principles of scientific management, a new middle layer of management would be created to plan and implement a more efficient system of work that paid for itself by providing enormous savings of time and increased productivity through the elimination of 'unnecessary motions and substituting fast for slow and inefficient motions'.
