No description available.

This study explores the history of a group of London handicraftsmen, the multi-skilled millwrights, who were power-transmission mechanics and rudimentary engineers, from 1775-1825. It reveals an organised group of old-style journeymen, who had developed a powerful grip on all aspects of the trade itself, not just their terms and conditions (which were in the top bracket of London artisans of the time). This amounted to a power-sharing partnership with their masters who accepted this arrangement for decades of the late eighteenth century because of the millwrights' unique skills, quality work and organised power as a trade club. The millwrights as individual handicraftsmen varied from 'rough and ready rule of thumb' mechanics to ingenious mechanical and civil engineers. Many of these latter could design and erect complex buildings and infrastructure for water, wind or horse-driven mills and install the transmission millwork/gear wheels of the time. They were, in effect, a powerful guild to which many of the masters belonged. With the growing demand for larger and more complex power sources of the early industrial revolution, this traditional trade came under tremendous pressure to overcome the restrictions imposed by the journeymen millwrights, especially from the businesses who employed the masters as contractors. The study examines the previously unappreciated role of the London brewers, distillers and other manufacturers in pressurising the master millwrights to resist the power of their combined journeymen. It was this pressure which induced the master millwrights to bring to Parliament a Combination Bill seeking to outlaw the London Society of Journeymen Millwrights' trade club and replace them by wage regulation of the magistrates of the City and neighbouring Home Counties. This wider development is examined in detail. Those City employers were also prominent in the more successful 1812-14 bid to remove the medieval apprenticeship laws which then underpinned all journeymen's control of skilled labour supply. But it was the exigencies of the wars with the French from the 1800s which really drove the technological changes which undermined the millwrights' exclusive control of mechanical work, especially using the new, better quality fabrication of iron and machinery. This development is examined at the Portsmouth naval dockyard in 1805 and the spread of new engineering works in the London area thereafter. A new breed of engineering employer now emerged who were successful in breaking the millwrights' grip on the trade with greater control in larger establishments. They made a practice of employing/training non- or short-apprenticed skilled fitters, turners and a variety of other specialised engineering workers to do aspects of the more expensive and less tractable high-skilled millwrights with what became known as an Engineers' Economy. This little-known episode of early British engineering history was illustrated throughout with contemporary prints and drawings and pen-pictures of the key figures who became involved - John Rennie, James Watt and Henry Maudslay, to name but a few. An update and rewrite has recently been produced entitled, The Old London Artisans: the Millwrights 1775-1825.

Le présent travail a pour but d’étudier le village ouvrier textile de New Lanark (Écosse), fondé en 1785, aujourd’hui classé au patrimoine mondial de l’humanité et célèbre pour sa réputation d’usine « modèle » en vertu de son association avec Robert Owen (1771- 1858), lui-même considéré comme le « père du socialisme britannique ». Il soulève l’hypothèse que cette mythification doit être réhistoricisée afin d’en éclairer le sens et la portée, tant pour être déconstruite que reconstruite. Tout d’abord, l’histoire du village ouvrier doit être replacée dans celle de la Révolution industrielle, afin d’éclairer les spécificités de cette forme de peuplement, dont l’identification à des modes de gestion dits « paternalistes » n’est pas des moindres. L’examen de ce creuset paternaliste éclaire également les fondements et la formation de la pensée d’Owen, qui prend appui sur le terrain de New Lanark afin de se livrer à une expérience en matière de réforme sociale. Deuxièmement, le village ouvrier doit être étudié en lui-même, afin de confronter ses dynamiques internes à la mise en pratique des politiques patronales. Troisièmement, nous envisagerons New Lanark à l’aune des réceptions dont il a fait l’objet, alors qu’Owen lance une campagne de promotion de sa doctrine aboutissant à la fin des années 1820 à la formation du premier socialisme britannique. Le statut de précurseur conféré à New Lanark et à son dirigeant sera également analysé au regard de l’affiliation de ce dernier au champ du « socialisme utopique ». Il est dès lors possible d’envisager une mise en tradition faite de processus stratégiques où, en dépit de ses excentricités supposées, et en vertu de sa politique patronale éclairée à New Lanark, Owen a été intégré au canon socialiste comme fondateur d’un courant national distinct du marxisme. / This thesis examines the textile industrial village of New Lanark (Scotland). Founded in 1785 and now a World Heritage site, it is mostly renowned for its reputation as a « model » factory, thanks to its association with Robert Owen (1771-1858), himself considered the « Father of British socialism ». It argues that such myth-making must be studied in context in order to grasp both its scope and significance, submitting it to a deconstruction and reconstruction process. Firstly, the history of the industrial village will be studied in the context of the Industrial Revolution in order to understand the specificities of this type of settlement, namely its close links with so-called « paternalistic » management methods. Examining paternalist discourses also sheds light on the foundations and formation of Owen’s thought, as he used New Lanark as a testbed for an experiment in social reform. Secondly, the industrial village will be studied per se in order to confront its internal dynamics with the application of Owen’s policies. Thirdly, we will analyse how New Lanark was received in its day, as Owen launched a campaign for the promotion of his doctrine, which amounted to the birth of the first British socialist movement in the late 1820s. The pioneering status which both New Lanark and Owen have been awarded also need to be analysed in relation to the latter’s labelling as a « utopian socialist ». The making of this tradition can therefore be understood as a series of strategic processes whereby Owen has been integrated into the socialist canon despite his supposed eccentricities and thanks primarily to his enlightened management policies at New Lanark, thus establishing him as the founder of a distinctively British socialism owing nothing to Marxism.

Textile manufacture in England had always employed a high proportion of women and this continued to be the case during the period 1760-1850. However, these industries underwent dramatic changes in both the nature and location of production, and women’s employment opportunities altered. Whilst in some cases technological advances reduced the strength required to perform a given process, making women more attractive to employers, this was not always the case. Urbanisation and factory production increased trade union influence, which often acted to the detriment of women’s access to well-paid occupations. The long standardised hours worked away from the home typically required of factory workers made it harder for women to combine textile work with the mothering and domestic responsibilities expected of them. As well as making it harder for women to work throughout their life, this discouraged investment in human capital of females by both themselves and their parents. Ideological resistance to women’s work outside of the home increased as the Industrial Revolution progressed. The more formalised work hierarchy created by factory production meant that resistance to female authority became increasingly important for denying women access to the best paid occupations. Ideology was not merely a response to material factors, but helped determine decisions made by economic actors. This thesis draws on a number of parliamentary reports over the period 1802-67. Not only do these reports provide a wealth of qualitative information, they also contain quantitative information which enables me to track male and female factory earnings over the life-cycle, by region and industry. The information in the parliamentary reports is used in conjunction with business records of various firms, covering both domestic and factory workers, as well as the writings of numerous contemporary observers.