44 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 



to the present day. New firms have risen and grown strong, and old 

 firms have adapted their activities to new conditions. New fabrics have 

 been produced, new raw materials introduced, and new modes of utilizing 

 them have been developed. There is no slavish persistence in rendering 

 one service because this one service has always been rendered. Firms 

 producing lace have entered the ' making-up ' trades, — a form of vertical 

 integration — and firms using one fabric of their own production buy 

 fabrics of other trades to join them in supplying a new market demand. 



Textiles, however, have not claimed all the initiative of the town. Men 

 of enterprising character and great ability have been spread over the 

 varied field of industry and the town has reaped a variegated crop 

 of fine industrial flowers. The great organization of Boots, the 

 famous Raleigh Cycle Works (using Bowden Brakes and Sturmey Archer 

 Gears), Player's Tobacco Factory, Barlock Typewriters, Beeston Boilers, 

 Stanton Ironworks, are some of the outstanding examples of Nottingham 

 enterprise, and there are many others in the electrical, machine building, 

 motor, tanning industries. They are all firms which have either originated 

 new products or have, with the expanding market demand of recent 

 years, taken the lead by virtue of efficiency. 



In a dynamic economic system new industries grow and, inevitably, 

 certain old industries languish or shrink, for dynamism means a changing 

 pattern of activities, a changing allocation of resources, not simply the 

 addition of fresh activities. Nottingham has seen a certain amount of 

 such shrinkage, dynamic shrinkage, shrinkage due to economic ' progress ". 

 We have noted one of these already; there has been since the begirming 

 of this century, a change in the part played by lace in dress and Notting- 

 ham has had to accommodate herself to this change. In coal, also, there 

 has been a change and surplus miners, like surplus lace workers, have 

 had to move into the expanding trades. This many have done, though 

 there is a ' hard core " of unemployment which is accounted for by this 

 change. 



Besides the native growth of new industries certain new ones have 

 migrated into the area or have been developed by men from elsewhere. 

 Outstanding examples of this incursion are Ericsson's Telephones (Beeston) 

 and Celanese (Spondon). In addition there has been a development in 

 Nottingham and at Chilwell of activities connected with the arming of 

 the country. 



In the great industrial changes of the last generation Nottingham has, 

 then, maintained her traditional dynamic character. She has adapted her 

 old industries to new demands, she has developed new industries or made 

 small ones grow larger, and she has attracted to herself businesses from 

 elsewhere. After the earher industrial revolution she took her place on 

 the south of the great industrial north, active in a variety of ways. In 

 the new industrial revolution she is again taking her place on the north 

 of the new industrial south. Again she is distributing her interests and 

 occupations, hoping to ensure thereby the condition of steady prosperity 

 which, all things considered, has been her good fortune hitherto. 



