It is not the place here to provide a detailed account of the development of the Yorkshire wool textile industry during the prolonged transition from domestic handicraft manufacture to factory-based production. Such has been tackled previously by a number of historians but few have adequately stressed those aspects of industrial growth which are particularly relevant to the present study. The main concern of this chapter, therefore, is to throw light on the nature and chronology of industrial expansion and its implications for capital accumulation. The decades with which we are concerned saw an unprecedented increase in the degree of industrial concentration generated by technological and organisational change and a massive expansion in the amount of fixed and circulating capital employed. To what extent this increased mass of capital flowed into industrial production from other sectors anticipating a high return, or was generated from within industry itself, by what means businesses were established and expanded, by what means profits were accumulated and recycled are the major questions to be addressed later. With this in mind the emphasis here is on three important developments which are crucial to the study of capital accumulation. Firstly the changing nature of industrial ownership and the organisation of production will be documented. Secondly, attention will be drawn to the nature and chronology of technological change and its implications for capital finance. Finally, changes in raw materials, products, markets and merchanting, and in the nature and periodicity of cyclical trends affecting circulating capital requirements will be mentioned.