medieval-atlas/economic-development/297

Transcription

Growth of manufactories, 1590 to 1707 There was an appreciable growth, especially after 1660, of 'manufactories'. The details here, from a convenient list in G. Marshall, Presbyteries and Profits (1980), which derives from the printed records, mostly of parliament and privy council, almost certainly understates the real number. Yet they hardly amounted to, as was once claimed, ' an industrial revival' . Their growth should be considered along with other developments of the seventeenthcentury economy such as the growth of burghs of barony; the flight of some crafts, especially in Edinburgh, to the suburbs to secure cheaper costs and wage rates; the increasing range of merchant investment of capital in non-mercantile areas and the growing sophistication of business partnerships made on joint-stock lines, which dates from the I620s rather than the I690s; and the repeated government intervention in the economy, seen in the acts in 1641, 1661 and 1681 to encourage woollen manufactories. The projects in paper, glass, hardware, soap and sugar were new but much of the investment in wool, textiles and leather, unlike the famous cloth manufactory at Newmills near Haddington, was probably only an extension of long-established patterns of putting-out to rural industry. Most manufactories were small-scale and, except for those in sugar, hardly profitable. They did not, as they were intended to, make Scotland self-sufficient in these products. Theirconcentration around Edinburgh (which had at least nine before 1650) and, after 1660, in Glasgow reflects the predominance of investment by burgesses of these two towns and neighbouring lairds in these ventures. \f' .~ _,,!),e! 0\ Colinton "" Braid Detail of Edinburgh -Leith area Manufactories 1590 to 1707 (/) CD .;:: tl 30