Adam Smith revisited: the relationship between the English woollen manufacture and the availability of coal before the use of steam power

Abstract

The timing of textile de-industrialisation in eastern, southern, and western England and the concomitant shift of the woollen manufacture to the West Riding of Yorkshire is examined in temporal detail. The study shows that the manufacture was moving to settlements with cheap coal, low cost of living and running water as early as the sixteenth century. These settlements became key woollen manufacture centres and remained so until the nineteenth century. The industry was located on the West Riding of Yorkshire coal field long before the industrial revolution and the demand for coal to generate steam power.