Economic Decline in the English Industrial Revolution: The Gloucester Wool Trade, 1800–1840

Albion M. Urdank

The Journal of Economic History, 1985, vol. 45, issue 2, 427-433

Abstract: This study questions the concept of entrepreneurial failure, traditionally invoked to account for the demise of the Gloucestershire wool trade in the Industrial Revolution. Gloucester clothiers used steam power selectively because of the high cost of coal but on a more regular basis and at greater capacity than scholars have commonly admitted. Excess capacity due to overcapitalization accounted for the failure of mills with large engines; underutilization of steam accounted for the failure of mills with small engines. Both types of failure sprang from rational and entrepreneurial choices, and not from an unwillingness to innovate.

Date: 1985
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