The thesis concerns the transfer of the Staffordshire pottery industry from a domestic craft serving local markets to a factory-based industry serving international markets. The Staffordshire case is set in the wider context of the transfer to the factory system in other provincial centres. The organisation of the pottery industry is traced from the late seventeenth century, when potters adopted craft specialisation and the division of labour to satisfy market expansion. The dependence on hand craft processes enabled the potter to establish manufacturing units within domestic-scale premises in the eighteenth century and this is considered together with the simultaneous development of the purpose-built pottery factory. The pottery industry relied on a limited range of raw materials and their rising cost in the manufacturing process prompted some entrepreneurs to make attempts at horizontal integration. The expansion of the pottery industry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was achieved with a relatively low fixed capital investment, and the opportunities for credit enabled potters to commence in business with only a limited supply of working cash - which accounted for the frequent instability of many of the enterprises.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:467186 |
| Date | January 1976 |
| Creators | Nixon, Malcolm I. |
| Publisher | Aston University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://publications.aston.ac.uk/12092/ |
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