Employment preservation and textile regulation in early modern England, 1550–1640

John H Gendron

doi:10.1017/s1744137421000187

Abstract

AbstractMuch agreement exists among economic historians that an institutional structure which allows for broad participation in a country's economy is conducive to growth. With respect to England's institutional structure, changes that followed the Glorious Revolution of 1688 are given pride of place in recent literature. This article contributes to this literature by highlighting and explaining regulatory change that removed barriers to entry into the country's most vital industry, textiles, in the years between 1550 and 1640. However, although economic historians have tended to explain England's growth-facilitating institutions as arising abruptly through political revolution that placed constraints on the Crown, this article will elucidate change that was protracted, accretive, peaceful, and came through royal institutions. More specifically, this article argues that restrictive regulations, which were widely supported, were removed because Crown and Council, in consultation with local officials, recognized that enforcement would come at the cost of the greater priority of employment preservation.

Highlights

The spread of social institutions that enabled greater participation in economic activity and political life likely contributed to the broad-based economic growth of the 19th century
Despite having the backing of powerful interest groups, such restrictive regulations failed because the Crown and its Privy Council – who, before the Glorious Revolution, were the principal handlers of economic policy in general (Clay, 1984: 203) and textile regulation in particular (Keirn, 1992: 2) – in consultation with local elites serving as both royal officials as well as advocates of their localities (Goldie, 2001; Wrightson, 1980) recognized that strict enforcement of regulation would disemploy workers, which was deemed a worse outcome than the non-enforcement of otherwise desirable regulation
The 1552 Act, which outlawed wool middlemen, came at the behest of the Merchants of the Staple, who held a monopoly on the export of wool and had seen their profits eroded as domestic manufactures retained increasing amounts of the raw material (Bowden, 1962: 155; State Papers Domestic, hereafter SP, 14/84 f. 56; Acts of the Privy Council, hereafter APC, 1616–1617: 180)

Summary

Introduction

The spread of social institutions that enabled greater participation in economic activity and political life likely contributed to the broad-based economic growth of the 19th century. Ogilvie (2019), North et al (2009), and Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) refer to these institutional arrangements as ‘generalized’, ‘open-access’, and ‘inclusive’, respectively. England’s institutional structure has received much scholarly interest due to its precocious industrialization and growth in living standards. This article will explain how England’s most vital industry, textiles, was spared the imposition of highly ‘particularlized’ institutions (Ogilvie, 2019) – i.e. those which serve the interest of a particular group at the expense of others – between the years 1550–1640. Over these years, particularized regulations on wool middlemen, quality standards, industrial organization, and labor markets were abrogated, attenuated, or deliberately not enforced, and, as a result, barriers to entry were lowered, allowing industry to develop within a more generalized institutional framework.

Regulatory change and its historiography

Wool middlemen

Quality standards

Corporate administration

Conclusion