38 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 



diversity. When William Felkin, the historian of hosiery and lace, 

 addressed the Economics Section of the British Association at its first 

 meeting in Nottingham in 1866 he discussed those two trades which, 

 at the time, certainly promised to occupy the entire energies of 

 the people. Already, he claimed, the town possessed nearly one 

 half of all the bobbin-net machines in the country. To-day, how- 

 ever; it is the centre of a manufacturing district which is now 

 characterised by the wide variety of its products. It is withal 

 an historic city. It has not sprung into existence merely as the 

 result of the industrial progress of the last century and a half; neither 

 has a modern town been grafted to an older one. Rather does Notting- 

 ham fall into that group of cities such as Bristol, Norwich and Leicester 

 its near neighbour, in which growth and change have been continuous 

 from the time of an early foundation. 



ii. INDUSTRIAL NOTTINGHAM 



BY 



A. RADFORD, B.Sc. (EcoN.) and 



W. O. BURROWS, SECRETARY OF THE NOTTINGHAM CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. 



The economic character of the City of Nottingham is only to be under- 

 stood fully when it is treated as the centre of a wider area which may be 

 called Greater Nottingham. It is always difficult to mark out the 

 boundaries of a ' greater ' town but various tests can be applied — 

 geographical features, the Census of residences and places of work (1921), 

 the density of the local rail and road services, the location of factories 

 and other works belonging to firms whose offices are in the city, combined 

 with the sense of locality and common traditions or community of social 

 interests possessed by those who know the area well from long living there. 

 These tests indicate that we are approximately correct if we regard Greater 

 Nottingham or Industrial and Commercial Nottingham as including the 

 city itself with the rural districts of Basford (which encircles the city) 

 and Bingham (close in on the east) and the ring of urban districts which 

 adjoin the city directly or are included in or adjoin the rural areas men- 

 tioned. These urban districts are Arnold, Carlton, West Bridgford, 

 Beeston and Stapleford (including Chilwell) Long Eaton (just over the 

 boundary in Derbyshire), Eastwood and Hucknall, moving clockwise 

 round the area from the north. Thus Greater Nottingham lies in two 

 counties, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and. being situated at the 

 extreme south-west of an oval shaped county, parts of the area lie near 

 the counties of Lincolnshire, Rutland and Leicestershire. But the area 

 delimited is essentially the Nottingham area, and although most of the 

 urban districts claim rightly to possess their own economic individualities, 

 their people regard Nottingham as their city and recognise the integrity 



