Industrialisation involves a continuing sequence of technical and organisational changes—the process speeds up and slows down but never stops. Some technical changes are small, merely daily, monthly or annual improvements in operations. Infrequently there are major shifts in technology. They eventually alter everything else, even perhaps the very nature of the company, so that it would be unrecognisable to those who worked at an earlier stage of its evolution. Those companies which keep their place in the competitive race do so only at the cost of unceasing improvement. The present case involves a number of critical changes of technology and responses to their challenge in organisational and other adjustments. In steel there was the switch from painstaking, smallscale methods of quality production to the bulk output of the Bessemer and open hearth processes. To a lesser degree there were effects from changes in armour-plate technology. Shipbuilding materials changed from wood to iron and then to steel within a few decades; there was innovation in forms of propulsion, unceasing evolution in styles and increases in vessel size.

The forces released in the Industrial Revolution often seem impersonal and hopelessly beyond the powers of individuals to modify in any significant way. This impression ignores the fact that general trends are made from the decisions of millions, and those who invent, innovate and build up industries are individuals. It is outstanding persons—great entrepreneurs, ‘captains of industry’ and distinguished managers of men—whose actions determine which smaller, pre-existing concern or locality provides the foundation for the building of leading enterprises. In turn such key individuals may crowd out fit successors.