The factory imperative

Fully developed factories were late to arrive in this most advanced of industries. Textile engineering before 1820 was characterized by flexible specialization and an ‘ever-changing assortment of semi-customized products’. In this it resembled the metal trades of Sheffield or the west Midlands, which took a middle path in workshop scale, contracted out certain processes, and adopted division of labour as far as was practical. In 1850, still many small establishments offered useful specialisms and extra capacity, co-existing alongside vast and sophisticated engineering factories. Large did not imply inflexible; indeed British engineers were later criticized for being over-flexible, too willing to offer tailored products rather than, more efficiently and profitably, well-defined ranges.

The rise of the engineering factory followed closely upon a series of breakthroughs in machine-tool technology between 1815 and 1830. From relying heavily on manual dexterity in 1800, textile engineering had by 1840 advanced to a point where machines made machines. Key breakthroughs were to the lathe and planer. Particularly significant was the work of Roberts and Whitworth, who, said William Fairbairn, made ‘new and more perfect tool machinery, which has given not only mathematical precision, but almost a creative power – as one machine creates another’. But process mechanization did not in itself make factories inevitable. Many of the new machine tools could be accommodated in existing workshops. The systems serving machinemakers for 40 or 50 years still presented advantages, optimizing the use of labour, with subcontractors and casual staff working intensively or otherwise, according to demand. Even after 1840, the small workshop sector employed large numbers on jobbing and repair work, or other tasks or products outside machine-making's mainstream.

By about 1820, though, the industry's leading lights were moving to factories. Economics decided it, the prospect of enhancing quality and efficiency. Engineering – unlike textiles – never required a vast, unwieldy and fragile outwork system, nor was it much troubled by labour discipline and embezzlement. For engineers, moving into a factory actually demanded more of management. They must assume quality and training responsibilities previously dealt with by subcontractors, and learn to supervise a large workforce and address skill shortages.