Industrialisation Before the Factory
We often associate industrialisation with the growth of factory industry — but there is a problem with this idea. Even before factories dotted the landscape in England and Europe, there was large-scale industrial production for an international market that was not based on factories. Historians call this phase proto-industrialisation ('proto' means the first or early form of something).
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merchants from the towns in Europe began moving to the countryside, supplying money to peasants and artisans and persuading them to produce for an international market. With the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of colonies, the demand for goods grew.
Why Merchants Turned to the Countryside
Merchants could not expand production within the towns. This was because urban crafts and trade guilds were powerful: these were associations of producers that trained craftspeople, controlled production, regulated competition and prices, and restricted the entry of new people. Rulers granted guilds the monopoly right to produce and trade in specific products, so it was difficult for new merchants to set up business in towns.
In the countryside, poor peasants and artisans were losing their common lands as open fields disappeared and commons were enclosed. Many had tiny plots that could not employ the whole household. So when merchants offered advances to produce goods, peasant households eagerly agreed — this income supplemented their shrinking earnings from cultivation and made fuller use of family labour.
The Town-and-Country Network
Within this system a close relationship developed between town and countryside. Merchants were based in towns, but the work was done mostly in the countryside. A merchant clothier in England bought wool from a wool stapler and carried it to the spinners; the yarn was then passed to weavers, fullers and dyers, and the finishing was done in London, which became known as a finishing centre.
This proto-industrial system was part of a network of commercial exchanges, controlled by merchants, with goods produced by a vast number of producers working within their family farms, not in factories. At each stage, a merchant employed 20 to 25 workers, so each clothier controlled hundreds of workers.
Questions and Answers
Q1. What is meant by proto-industrialisation? Ans. Proto-industrialisation was the phase of large-scale industrial production for an international market that existed before the coming of factories. It was not based on factories but on merchants supplying money to peasants and artisans in the countryside who produced goods in their own homes.
Q2. In the seventeenth century, why did merchants from towns begin employing peasants and artisans in the villages? Ans. Because they could not expand production in the towns, where the powerful trade guilds controlled production and restricted new entrants. So they turned to the countryside, where poor peasants — losing their common lands — eagerly accepted advances to produce goods.
Questions and Answers (continued)
Q3. How did proto-industrial production help the peasants of the countryside? Ans. It gave them an income that supplemented their shrinking earnings from cultivation, allowed them to remain in the countryside and continue farming their small plots, and made fuller use of the labour of the whole family.
Q4. Describe the town-and-country network in the proto-industrial cloth trade. Ans. A merchant clothier in the town bought wool and passed it through spinners, weavers, fullers and dyers in the countryside; the finishing was done in London (the 'finishing centre'). Each merchant controlled hundreds of producers working in their family homes.