West Riding – Western Rhineprovince, 1790-1840: Diverse Paths to ...

West Riding – West of the Rhineland, 1780-1840 4
Alfred Reckendrees, University of Cologne reckendrees@wiso.uni-koeln.de
search since the 1970s, especially by R.G. Wilson 1 , David Jenkins 2 , Derek Gregory 3 ,
Maxine Berg 4 , or Pat Hudson 5 . In fact, I am rather indebted to their insightful and controversial
interpretations. Unfortunately, economic history has not similarily explored the industrial
development of the west of the Rhineland. 6 Remarkable research has only been
done on the regional proto-industrial development 7 pioneered by Herbert Kisch. 8 Regardless
of this “state of non-research”, there is, remarkably, a predominant interpretation of
the German woollen cloth industry that was formulated first in 1954 by William Henderson:
‘At first only slow progress was made in extending the use of modern machinery in the
German woollen and worsted industries’ 9
Henderson probably drew his predication from the literature on the German cotton or worsted
industries but despite of this little fault his superficial verdict has never been challenged.
The dominant perception of the German woollen cloth industry rather reproduces
the “Henderson view”: (1.) technical development lagged at least three decades behind the
development in Britain, and (2.) industrial progress was very slow. 10
But in the course of my ongoing research on regional economic development from 1790 to
1850, 11 I became sceptic towards this “Henderson view” and, advancing, my scepticism
grows. The main objective of the following analyses is, therefore, a preliminary interpretation
of the industrial development of the woollen cloth industry of the west of the Rhineland.
This paper employs a comparative approach in order to challenge the “Henderson
view”: it compares the two industrial developments of the West Riding of Yorkshire and
the west of the Rhineland in order to identify the respective specificity and in order to give
an explanation of the sectoral industrial development in the west of the Rhineland. The im-
1
Wilson, Gentlemen (1971); Wilson, Supremacy (1973).
2
Jenkins, Factory (1973); Jenkins, West Riding (1975); Jenkins/Ponting, British Wool (1987).
3
Gregory, Transformation (1982).
4
Berg, Age (1985).
5
Hudson, Genesis (1986); Hudson, Revolution (1992); Hudson, Proto-industrialization (1994).
6 nd
One reason is, of course, that many records were destroyed during the 2 World War, furthermore the
regional firms, the chamber of commerce of Aix-la-Chapelle, and even some cities of the region were
quite unaware of history. There are, however, some contemporary publications and older dissertations
and popular books that will be noted when they are employed as well as publications of social or political
historical origin that provide further information.
7 th
This delivers deeper insight in the economic development of the 18 century but its research stopped
in front of the factory doors; see: Ebeling, Frühindustrialisierung (1997); Ebeling, Handwerkswirtschaft
(1997); Ebeling, Zunfthandwerk (2000); Ebeling, Möglichkeiten (2001); Ebeling, Entstehung (2004);
Schmidt, Burtscheid (1997); Schmidt, Tuchmanufakturen (2000); Schmidt, Standort (2004).
8
Kisch, Industries (1959); Kisch, Impact (1962); Kisch, Deterrents (1964); Kisch, Textilgewerbe (1981).
9
Henderson, Britain (1954), 145.
10
Blumberg, Textilindustrie (1965); Teuteberg, Wollgewerbe (1975). This predication, of course, includes
the development in the west of the Rhineland whose relevance is at least acknowledged by the standard
publications on the German cloth industry: Blumberg, Textilindustrie (1965); also Zunkel,
Gewerbe- und Industrielandschaften (1986) on the developments of the second half of the 19 th century.
11
Working title: “The emergence of a >new economy