Retailing Revolution in the Eighteenth Century? Evidence from North-West England

Abstract

This article explores the extent and nature of retail change in the eighteenth century. In focusing on a single region, it places retailing in its spatial, economic and social context; by adopting different scales of analysis – shop, town and region – it reveals much about the spatiality of retailing. The study shows that retail change had penetrated all aspects of retailing and all parts of the regional urban hierarchy by the end of the eighteenth century. However, any retailing revolution was a patchy and conditional process: the pace of change varied, and the gap between large and small towns apparently widened in the early nineteenth century.