The long-planned, readable, fascinating story of how Leeds transformed into a great industrial centre is now on the horizon. It won’t be out this year, but fingers crossed for 2025.
The focus is on the eighteenth century – and even a bit earlier – when all kinds of interesting change was in progress. Industrialisation wasn’t just a matter of machinery, but encompassed many kinds of new technologies (including materials), techniques and skills. It also needed new forms of transport, commercial facilities, merchant knowledge, and of course inward migration.
My work emphasises the communality of working, the closeness of the smiths and joiners and ironfounders. New evidence about how those groups actually worked challenges every myth and cliché about risk-taking ‘entrepreneurs’, and claims that cut-throat competition drove these processes. A lot of the main action was inside small workshops, the kind which kept few records of their own activities. The best evidence comes through exploring relationships within communities, especially communities of metal-workers.
I’ll update this page when there’s further news.
