The new engineering

Northern machine-makers generally came from modest beginnings. James Watt jun. in 1802 labelled Leeds engineers as ‘men without character and without means’, prevented by social background from becoming ‘eligible connections’ for Boulton and Watt. The time when humble origins were worn with pride by the wealthy and successful was still a generation or more away. Relative to other manufacturing industries, textile engineering raised many former artisans to success, prosperity and social advancement. To call this ‘rags to riches’, though, may be stretching a point.

Machine-making originated in a largely artisanal world of small workshops, where in the early years basic tools and equipment largely sufficed, and external capital was not always needed for expansion. The skill was the thing. As in other craft industry, there was an expectation that most or all sons would follow the trade and join the family business. In places where this new engineering sector was located, there were few or no guilds, nor other restrictions. Apprenticeship within certain crafts was a respected qualification. In other industries where entry costs were low, over-capacity could bring the weakest firms to failure. Here, with the market for machinery fast expanding, it often bucked the trend during economic downturns. This would not have happened unless this most technical – and increasingly so – of industries produced machines which were of good quality and economically viable. So evidently the trade satisfied customers, attracted plenty of orders, and returned profits sufficient to finance much of its own expansion. Yet there was a high dropout rate: many early participants quit textile engineering altogether.

This chapter explores the origins and experiences of textile engineers from the first generations, those building businesses in Keighley and Leeds from around 1780 until c. 1830. Most likely to succeed in the longer term were those with mechanical aptitude and perspective. This view of course benefits from historical hindsight. But mechanical skills did not guarantee continuity, and in fact the initial range of participants was wide. So where did they emerge from, which trades, industrial background, and district? And what does the calibre of machine-makers, masters and men, reveal of the products, and about the industry's changing character through these early decades?