Making an Imperial Compromise: The Calico Acts, the Atlantic Colonies, and the Structure of the British Empire

Abstract

1697 a mob of woolen and silk weavers stormed the East India Company's office in London, egged on by yells that "the Company had not made a Dividend for some years, but they would make one now." 1 It was true that the Company had not paid dividends to its shareholders for six years, but these weavers did not own shares. The weavers rioted, sent petitions, and published tracts to demand protection from the apparently devastating competition of cotton calicoes imported by the Company to London and then distributed to the rest of Britain, Europe, West Africa, the West Indies, and the Americas. Woolen and silk producers constituted two of England's most important manufacturing sectors, and their suffering posed major economic, human, administrative, and political problems. In 1700 Parliament attempted to solve these problems with "An Act for the more effectual employing the Poor, by encouraging the Manufactures of this Kingdom," the first Calico Act. 2 The act prohibited the

Innovations and the art of deception: mixed cloths in Venetian Crete (17th century)

“…The challenges faced by prints on cotton-linens in the 1750s and 1760s were not, however, confined to the domestic market. In the British colonies in the Americas, decorated, all-cotton Indian calicoes were not subjected to the prohibitions and tariffs imposed in Great Britain in the early decades of the 18 th century (Eacott 2012). All types of Indian textiles could be imported and used in the American colonies, as long as they were shipped from India via Great Britain.…”

The China Miracle in a technological and socio-political framework—The role of institutions

“…Moreover, government interventions played an important role in the advent of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. The British government passed a series of parliament acts in the late 17 th and early 18 th century to restrict imports and sales of cotton textiles from India, China and Persia (Landes 2003;Eacott 2012). The British colonial authority opened Bengali (Indian) market to British goods and imposed a duty of 75% on export of cotton textiles from Bengal, while raw materials such as cotton can be exported duty-free (James 1840).…”