ABSTRACT
Manufacturing desirable consumer products in the provinces for good economic reasons was only a rst step: somehow these had to be brought to the attention of the would-be customer, who then had to be persuaded to purchase. John Millburn identied ‘marketing techniques’ as one aspect of instrument making which had barely been studied.1 At the start of the period under discussion, there were two principal markets for the provincial trade: the local one, which was never large; and the London one, into which the greater part of the provincial output must have anonymously vanished, to reappear inscribed with a ‘London’ address or signature. In 1851, the London journalist Henry Mayhew (1812-87) wrote:
An experienced tradesman said to me: ‘All these low-price metal things, fancy goods and all, which you see about, are made in Birmingham; in nineteen cases out of twenty at the least. They may be marked London, or Shefeld, or Paris, or any place – you can have them marked North Pole if you will – but they’re genuine Birmingham. The carriage is lower from Birmingham than from Shefeld – that’s one thing.’2
