Growth, profits and technological choice: The case of the Lancashire cotton textile industry

Abstract

Using Lancashire textile industry company case studies and financial records, mainly from the period just before the First World War, the processes of growth and decline are re-examined. These are considered by reference to the nature of Lancashire entrepreneurship and the impact on technological choice. Capital accumulation, associated wealth distributions and the character of Lancashire business organisation were sybiotically linked to the success of the industry before 1914. However, the legacy of that accumulation in later decades, chronic overcapacity, formed a barrier to reconstruction and enhanced the preciptious decline of a once great industry