Proto-industrialisation: the case of the West Riding Wool Textile Industry in the 18th and early 19th centuries

Abstract

In recent years the debate on the transition to industrial capitalism in Europe has been influenced and informed by the concept of a 'proto-industrial phase' which preceded and paved the way for industrialisation. In this phase the spread and prevalence of rural domestic production for long distance trade is seen as the major dynamic and attention is focussed on the 'functional interrelationship between the peasant family economy and merchant capital' . By addressing itself to the classical Marxist questions of the nature and mechanism of primary accumulation, agrarian transformation and the role of merchant capital, the proto-industry concept has come to occupy a strategic place in recent historical debate, particularly on the continent. The emphasis on the family as a 'site' for the construction of new social relations of production wherein women's work was of increasing significance, is necessarily of interest to feminists in particular. Of importance too are the points of affinity and contrast between 'proto-industry' and issues in the theory of Third World development. It is thus perhaps time for some more detailed consideration of this concept by English historians particularly by those working on local, industrial, labour and social history before the factory. Rural industrial production has a long history from the medieval period but its