ABSTRACT
the industrial revolution consisted of changes in the volume and distribution of resources, technical change being fundamental to the economic progress that took place. ‘Without the inventions’, writes Professor Ashton, ‘industry might have continued its slow-footed progress … but there would have been no industrial revolution.’ 1 The history of the hosiery industry during the first half of the nineteenth century demonstrates the truth of this statement, while the implications for people whose livelihood depended upon the condition of an industry which experienced little or no change in the methods of production are also apparent in an account of the life and labour of Nottingham framework knitters to 1850.
