NA TURE 



145 



THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1876 



BRITISH MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES 



British Mamifacturing Industries. By Various Authors. 

 Edited by G. Phillips Bevan. (London : Edward Stan- 

 ford.) 



IN this scries we have presented to us an account of the 

 origin and development of those industries which 

 have given this country her pre-eminence among nations. 

 As stated by the editor, the object of the various treatises 

 is simple and unambitious ; no attempt is made to render 

 them technical guides to the industries to which they 

 relate ; the main idea is to give, in as readable a form as 

 is compatible with accuracy and a freedom from superfi- 

 ciality, the main features and present position of the 

 leading industries of the kingdom, so as to enable general 

 readers to comprehend the enormous growth of the last 

 quarter of a century. The editor has been singularly 

 fortunate in the selection of his co-operators. For example, 

 Prof. Warington Smyth tells us all about the mines and 

 collieries of the country ; Prof. Hull discourses on quarries 

 and building stones ; Capl. Bedford Pirn on shipbuilding ; 

 Mr. Mattieu Wiliams finds congenial themes in iron and 

 steel, gunpowder and explosives. The article on cotton 

 by Mr. Isaac Watts, the Secretary of the Cotion Supply 

 Association, is remarkably full and complete ; Mr. Felkin's 

 little treatise on hosiery and lace is a perfect mine of infor- 

 mation, and forms amost interesting record of perseverance 

 and effective skill ; the stories of Jedediah Strutt and John 

 Heathcoat will ever be two of the most thrilling chapters 

 in the history of the industrial progress of this country. 

 Ir-deed this series might have been fitly called the 

 Romance of British Industry. We are told of Lee and 

 the stocking-frame ; of Wedgwood and Herbert Minton ; 

 cf Hargreaves, Arkvvright, and Crompton ; of Dud Dudley 

 and poor Cort ; and of numbers of others, whose peaceful 

 victories have done more for this country than all the 

 machinations of her statesmen or the valour of her 

 armies. Apropos of the invention of the stocking-frame 

 it may be remarked that Elmore's well-known picture, 

 representing Lee, after his expulsion from his college, 

 intently watching the lissom fingers of his wife as she 

 knits for the support of the household, in order that he 

 might imitate their motion, is founded on a myth. Lee 

 was a decent country curate in easy circumstances ; he 

 was never married, nor was he expelled from his college. 

 But little is known of his history, beyond that, becoming 

 greatly discouraged with the reception of his invention in 

 this country, he passed over to France, where he died, 

 neglected and in misery, in 1610. The history of the im- 

 provement of the stocking-frame is not less interesting 

 than that of its origin. Since the time of Strutt, nearly 

 300 changes and adaptations have been patented, the vast 

 majority of which are due to men who commenced life at 

 the forge or bench, or at the frame itself. 



The history of the rise and development of the lace 

 manufacture is scarcely less remarkable, and Mr. Felkin 

 has much to say concerning the personal history of its 

 founders and of the trials and struggles of the inventors 

 and improvers of lace-making machinery'. Few trades 

 have probably given rise to such an amount of litigation : 

 Vou xnr.— No. 346 



indeed one can have no real conception of the immensity 

 of the barrister's theme, or how eloquent he must have 

 seemed to the beaver when — 



"he proceeded to cite 

 A number of cases where the making of laces 

 Had proved an infringement of right." 



until he has read this essay. The story is painfully 

 sad, and its moral is not lost on Mr. Felkin. "We 

 cannot but remark," he says, " the extraordinary amount 

 of latent inventive skill brought into operation by men 

 entirely uninstrur.ted in the science of mechanics ; and be 

 struck with the time and thought that the knowledge of 

 sound mechanical principles would have saved them. . . . 

 It is painful to notice how many of these men, possessing 

 fine natural talents, from the want of self government 

 failed to use aright even the measure of profit that reached 

 them. . . . Genius was to them rather a curse than a 

 blessing. Here are strong arguments for higher scientific 

 and moral education to be placed within reach of these 

 classes." 



Mr. Mattieu Williams concludes his capital little 

 treatise on steel with a similar refleccion. He indignantly 

 protests against the fallacy of attributing our industrial 

 success to coal or iron-stone, or to any other mere minera- 

 logical or geographical accident. "It is not British 

 minerals, but British industrial energy which has given us 

 our industrial supremacy. It is not true that we are so 

 exceptionally rich in coal. Many other nations possess 

 vastly greater stores than ours ; but while theirs has lain 

 buried undcrtheir feet, ours has been brought to the surface 

 and wonderfully used ; to such an extent indeed, that we 

 are actually approaching the limits of our supply before 

 other and older people have tapped theirs. . . The same 

 energies which have thus seized upon and utilised the 

 rudest source of power to supply the coarser wants of 

 ourselves and the rest of mankind, will if properly directed, 

 similarly turn to account the more refined and recondite 

 energies of nature which science is revealing, and which 

 will supply in like manner the higher wants of more 

 advanced civilisation. To succeed in this we must prepare 

 at once, by affording to all classes the largest attainable 

 amount of knowledge of the raw materials and powers of 

 nature ; of human means of turning these to profitable 

 account ; of the social organisation in the midst of which 

 we live, and by which we are to co-operate industrially with 

 each other and all the peoples of the earth ; and above 

 all, of the individual moral qualities, habits, and attain- 

 ments that are necessary for each man's industrial 

 success." 



It is because other nations arc actually turning to 

 account "the more refined and recondite energies of 

 nature " that our industrial supremacy is threatened. In 

 chemical manufacturing, for example, the pre-eminence of 

 the alkali trade belongs to us, but, as Prof. Church tells 

 us, German, Austrian, and French manufacturers are far 

 ahead of us in the production of the finer and more 

 delicate preparations of the chemist, and still continue 

 to make remarkable progress. " If a rare and curious 

 substance, discovered by a scientific chemist and made 

 in his laboratory painfully grain by grain, be found 

 useful in medicine or dyeing, or some other art, straight- 

 way the foreign manufacturing chemist makes it, not by 

 the ounce or pound merely, but by the hundredweight or 



