Book Chapter

Re-fashioning Industrial Revolution. Fibres, fashion and technical innovation in British cotton textiles, 1600-1780

  • John Styles

The early years of the British Industrial Revolution were dominated by mechanical innovations in cotton spinning. They emerged at a time when raw cotton prices were unprecedentedly high and the supply of all-cotton fabrics from India, the world’s principal producer of cotton textiles, had contracted dramatically. Most «cotton» textiles manufactured in Britain in the mid-18th century were combinations of expensive cotton yarn and cheap linen yarn. Faced with rising material costs, manufacturers economised by increasing the proportion of cheaper linen yarn. The most fashionable cotton products were, however, made entirely from cotton, or required a fixed proportion of cotton yarn. As the cost of cotton rose, their rapidly rising sales provided the principal inducement to improve quality and cut costs by inventing machines for spinning cotton yarn.

  • Keywords:
  • Cotton,
  • fashion,
  • fibres,
  • yarns,
  • industrial revolution.,
+ Show More

John Styles

University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom - ORCID: 0000-0003-0826-7546

  1. Allen, Robert. 2009. The British Industrial Revolution in global perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Aspin, Chris, and Stanley David Chapman. 1964. James Hargreaves and the Spinning Jenny. Helmshore: Helmshore Local History Society.
  3. Baines, Edward. 1835. History of the cotton manufacture. London: Fisher, Fisher and Jackson.
  4. Belfanti, Carlo Marco. 1996. “Fashion and innovation: The origins of the Italian hosiery industry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” Textile History, 27: 132-47.
  5. Berg, Maxine. 2002. “From imitation to invention: creating commodities in eighteenth-century Britain.” Economic History Review, 55: 1-30.
  6. Berg, Maxine. 2004. “Consumption in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, ed. Roderick Floud, and Paul Johnson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, vol. 1, 357-87.
  7. Berg, Maxine. 2009. “Quality, cotton and the global luxury trade.” In How India clothed the world. The world of South Asian textiles, 1500-1850, ed. Giorgio Riello, and Tirthankar Roy, 391-414. Leiden: Brill.
  8. Bergius, Johann Heinrich Ludwig. 1779. Neues policey- und cameral-magazin nach alphabetischer ordung. Leipzig: M.G. Weidmanns, Erben und Reich, vol. 5.
  9. Britton, John. 1807. The Beauties of England and Wales. Vol. 9. London: Thomas Maiden.
  10. Caracausi, Andrea. 2014. “Textiles manufacturing, product innovations and transfers of technology in Padua and Venice between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.” In Innovation and creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European cities, ed. Karel Davids, and Bert de Munck, 131-60. Abingdon: Routledge.
  11. Chevis, Hugh. 2021. “Why Early Modern English clothiers started using Spanish Wool.” Textile History, ahead of print, 1-22.
  12. Chorley, Patrick. 1993. “The ‘draperies légères’ of Lille, Arras, Tournai, Valenciennes: new materials for new markets?”. In La draperie ancienne des Pays-Bas: débouchés et stratégies de survie (14e-16e siècles), ed. Marc Boone, and Walter Prevenier, 151-66. Leuven: Garant.
  13. Cole, William Allan. 1981. “Factors in demand 1700-80.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, ed. Roderick Floud, and Donald McCloskey, vol. 1, 36-65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. Committee on Linen Manufactory. 1803. “Report from the Committee relating to Chequed and Striped Linens.” In Reports from the Committees of the House of Commons, vol. 2, 1738-65, 289-316. London: House of Commons.
  15. Crowfoot, Elizabeth, Frances Pritchard, and Kay Staniland, Kay. 2006. Textiles and clothing, c.1150-c.1450. London: Boydell.
  16. Currie, Elizabeth. 2007. “Diversity and design in the Florentine tailoring trade, 1560-1620.” In The Material Renaissance, ed. Michelle O’Malley, and Evelyn Welch, 154-173. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  17. Dean, Phyllis, and William Allen Cole. 1964. British economic growth, 1688-1959. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  18. Defoe, Daniel. 1727. A brief deduction of the original, progress, and immense greatness of the British woollen manufacture. London: J. Roberts and A. Dodd.
  19. Dossie, Robert. 1768. Memoirs of agriculture and other oeconomical arts. Vol. 1. London: Nourse.
  20. Eacott, J. 2012. “Making an imperial compromise. The Calico Acts, the Atlantic colonies, and the structure of the British Empire.” William and Mary Quarterly, third series, 69: 731-62.
  21. Endrei, Walter. 1987. “Les étoffes dites de Pérouse, leurs antécédents et leur descendance.” Bulletin du CIETA, 65: 61-8.
  22. Epstein, Stephan R.. 2000. “The late medieval crisis as an ‘integration crisis’.” In Early Modern capitalism. Economic and social change in Europe 1400-1800, ed. Maarten Prak, 25-50. London: Routledge.
  23. Fairchilds, Cissie. 1993. “The production and marketing of populuxe goods in eighteenth-century Paris.” In Consumption and the world of goods, ed. Roy Porter, and John Brewer, 228-49. London: Routledge.
  24. Fitton, Robert S. 1989. The Arkwrights. Spinners of fortune. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  25. Harte, Negley. 1997. The New Draperies in the Low Countries and England, 1300-1800. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  26. Hawes, Lilla Mills. 1959. The Letter Book of Thomas Rasberry, 1758-1761. Savannah, Georgia: Georgia Historical Society.
  27. Horrell, Sarah. 2014. “Consumption, 1700-1870.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain, ed. Roderick Floud, Jane Humphries, and Paul Johnson, vol. 1, 237-63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  28. Huang, A.L. 2015. “Hanseatic Textile Production in 15th century long distance trade.” In Textiles and the Medieval economy: Production, trade and consumption of textiles, 8th-16th centuries, ed. Anglea Ling Huang, and Carsten Jahnke, 204-15. Oxford: Oxbow.
  29. Hunter, Jim. 1976. “The Paisley textile industry, 1695-1830.” Costume, 10: 1-15.
  30. Inikori, Joseph. 1989. “Slavery and the revolution in cotton textile production in England.” Social Science History, 13: 343-379.
  31. Jenkins, David T., Kenneth G. Ponting. 1982. The British wool textile industry 1770-1914. London: Heinemann.
  32. Levey, Santina M. 2003. “Lace in the Early Modern Period, c.1500-1780.” In The Cambridge History of Western textiles, ed. David Jenkins. Cambridge, vol. 1, 585-96. Cambridge University Press.
  33. McKendrick, Neil. 1982a. “The consumer revolution of eighteenth-century England.” In The birth of a consumer society, ed. Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and John Harold Plumb, 9-33. London: Europa.
  34. McKendrick, Neil. 1982b. “The commercialization of fashion.” In The birth of a consumer society, ed. Neil McKendrick, John Brewer and John Harold Plumb, 34-99. London: Europa.
  35. Madras Record Office. 1916. Despatches from England, 1681-1686. Madras: Government Press.
  36. Mann, Julia de Lacy. 1971. The cloth industry in the West of England from 1640 to 1880. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  37. Martin, Luc N.D. 1991. “Textile manufactures in Norwich and Norfolk, 1550-1622.” Cambridge: PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.
  38. Maw, Peter, Peter Solar, Aidan Kane, and John S. Lyons. 2021. “After the great inventions: technological change in UK cotton spinning, 1780-1835.” Economic History Review, early view, 1-34.
  39. Mazzoui, Maureen Fennell. 1981. The Italian cotton industry in the later Middle Ages, 1100-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  40. Mokyr, Joel. 1977. “Demand vs. supply in the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Economic History, 37: 981-1008.
  41. Mokyr, Joel. 2012. The enlightened economy. An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850. New Haven-London: Yale University Press.
  42. Molà, Luca. 2003. The silk industry of Renaissance Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  43. Munro, John H.A. 2003a. “Medieval woollens. Textiles, textile technology and industrial organisation, c.800-1500.” In The Cambridge History of Western textiles, ed. David Jenkins, vol. 1, 181-227. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  44. Munro, John H.A. 2003b. “Medieval woollens. The Western European woollen industries and their struggles for international markets, c.1000-1500.” In The Cambridge History of Western textiles, ed. David Jenkins, vol. 1, 228-324. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  45. Nelson, Janet. 1982. “An introductory survey of the silk industry in eighteenth-century Lancaster.” Contrebis, 10: 14-26.
  46. Nierstrasz, Chris. 2015. Rivalry for trade in tea and textiles. The English and Dutch East India Companies (1700-1800). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  47. Ogden, James. 1783. A Description of Manchester. Manchester.
  48. Poni, Carlo. 1997. “Fashion as flexible production: the strategies of the Lyon silk merchants in the eighteenth century.” In World of possibilities. Flexibility and mass production in Western industrialization, ed. Charles Sabel, and Jonathan Zeitlin, 37-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  49. Priestley, Ursula. 1997. “Norwich stuffs, 1600-1700.” In The New Draperies in the Low Countries and England, 1300-1800, ed. Negley Harte, 275-88. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  50. Rauser, Amelia. 2020. The age of undress. Art, fashion and the classical ideal in the 1790s. London-New Haven: Yale University Press.
  51. Riello, Giorgio. 2013. Cotton: The fabric that made the modern world. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  52. Rimmer, William Gordon. 1960. Marshalls of Leeds: Flax-spinners, 1788-1886. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  53. Rothermund Dietmar. 1999. “The changing pattern of British trade in Indian textiles, 1701-1757.” In Merchants, companies and trade: Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era, ed. Sushil Chaudhury, and Michel Morineau, 276-286. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  54. Sickinger, Raymond L. 2000. “Regulation or ruination: Parliament’s consistent pattern of mercantilist regulation of the English textile trade, 1660-1800.” Parliamentary History, 19: 211-32.
  55. Smith, Godfrey. 1756. The Laboratory or School of Arts. London: James Hodges.
  56. Spencer, Elizabeth. 2018. “None but Abigails appeared in white aprons. The Apron as an elite garment in eighteenth-century England.” Textile History, 49: 164-90.
  57. Styles, John. 2000. “Product innovation in Early Modern London.” Past and Present, 168: 124-169.
  58. Styles, John. 2007. The dress of the people: Everyday fashion in eighteenth-century England. London: Yale University Press.
  59. Styles, John. 2010. Threads of feeling: The London Foundling Hospital’s textile tokens, 1740-1770. London: Foundling Museum.
  60. Styles, John. 2016a. “Fashion, textiles and the origins of Industrial Revolution.” The East Asian Journal of British History, 5: 161-89.
  61. Styles, John. 2016b. “Fashion and innovation in Early Modern Europe.” In Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, textiles, and innovation in Europe, 1500-1800, ed. Evelyn Welch, 33-55. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
  62. Styles, John. 2020. “The rise and fall of the Spinning Jenny: Domestic mechanisation in eighteenth-century cotton spinning.” Textile History, 51: 1-42.
  63. Sykas, Philip. 2009. “Fustians in englishmen’s dress: From cloth to emblem.” Costume, 43: 1-18.
  64. Unwin, George. 1924. Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights: the Industrial Revolution at Stockport and Marples. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  65. Van der Wee, Herman. 2003. “The Western European woollen industries, 1500-1750.” In The Cambridge History of Western textiles, ed. David Jenkins, vol. 1, 397-472. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
  66. Wadsworth, Alfred P., and Julia de Lacy Mann. 1965. The cotton trade and industrial Lancashire 1600-1780. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  67. Woodcroft, Bennet. 1854. Titles of patents of invention. Part 1. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Pages: 45-71
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Re-fashioning Industrial Revolution. Fibres, fashion and technical innovation in British cotton textiles, 1600-1780

Authors

John Styles

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3.06

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

La moda come motore economico: innovazione di processo e prodotto, nuove strategie commerciali, comportamento dei consumatori / Fashion as an economic engine: process and product innovation, commercial strategies, consumer behavior

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

422

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-564-6

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-565-3

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-566-0

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

1,229

Fulltext
downloads

1,173

Views

Export Citation

1,346

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,420

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 381 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations