Mechanical Science on the Factory Floor: The Early Industrial Revolution in Leeds

Why Did the Industrial Revolution Start in Britain?

“…According to Mokyr, but also to several other scholars (see e.g. Goldstone, 2006Goldstone, , 2009McCloskey, 2010a;Jacob, 2007Jacob, , 2014Meisenzahl and Mokyr, 2012), the British innovative entrepreneurs in the early stage of the British industrial revolution were to some extent the embodiments of the Enlightenment movement.…”

“…North and Weingast 1989;Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012), the scientific revolution of the 16 th and 17 th centuries (see e.g. Musson and Robinson, 1969;Mokyr, 2005aMokyr, , 2010aJacob, 1997Jacob, , 2007Jacob, and 2014, the Great Discoveries at the end of the 15 th century (see e.g. Acemoglu et al, 2005b;Cordoba, 2007) or even well back into the medieval times (see e.g.…”

“…Musson andRobinson, 1969, Jacob andStewart, 2004;Bekar, Carlaw and Lipsey, 2005;Jacob, 1988Jacob, , 1997Jacob, , 2007Jacob, , 2014. In line with this view, the industrial revolution would owe much to the European scientific revolution.…”

“…Finally, scientific culture translates the entrepreneurs' confidence in the capacities of the new (applied) science to solve practical or technical problems and serve economic interests. According to Jacob (1988Jacob ( , 1997Jacob ( , 2007, science contributed to British economic success by designing the cultural and intellectual background for the British industrialists. In particular, British industry would owe a quite important debt to mechanical science and chemistry.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2007

“…Bruland explores the processes of selection and development of useful knowledge during the industrial revolution and argues that social resistance to technological innovation can be viewed as entirely rational. Mokyr himself restates a central tenet of his treatise, that the technology and efficiency of cotton mills, mines, and shipyards were intimately connected with experimentation, mathematics, and observation, while Jacob offers evidence of how such interconnections might have found their practical application among late eighteenth‐century Leeds textiles manufactories. Elsewhere, Howsam et al. provide a concise study of nineteenth‐century schoolbooks on classics, mathematics, science, and literature, and Murphy uncovers an unpublished manuscript by the eighteenth‐century economist Joseph Massie, thought to have been the outline of a textbook intended for use in Britain's first business school and containing important contributions in the fields of price theory, the role of money, and the rate of interest.…”