Innovation in goods and services is recognized by business historians and management scholars as a source of competitive advantage for firms in a variety of sectors.Footnote 1 Distinction has been made between proactive firms that anticipate the need to innovate, and reactive firms that respond only when problems arise.Footnote 2 Innovations in technology during the Industrial Revolution have been credited with providing firms with a competitive advantage by enabling them to increase their levels and quality of production.Footnote 3 Mass production lowered prices and extended the consumer base to include those with low incomes.Footnote 4 Improvements in transport provided by canals, railways, and steamships facilitated distribution in the domestic and overseas markets. Attention has also recently been drawn to the contribution of other factors to the competitive performance of firms, notably product design.
In her study of the American glass and pottery industries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Regina Blaszczyk found evidence of competition in product design between firms catering to the mass market. Proactive firms sought to gain a competitive advantage by combining innovations both in production technology and in product design. They researched product design in two ways: first they looked at good practice in other companies and emulated it; second they drew on feedback from distributors and customers. The Staffordshire pottery sector, notably the English firm of Wedgwood and Bentley, was a model for good practice in product design and development.Footnote 5 Its practices were widely emulated and transmitted to American producers by English workers migrating to America. Proactive American businesses sought opinions on products from customers, technical specialists, and “merchants, salesmen and retail buyers” to assess the performance of existing products and anticipate future ones.Footnote 6
In contrast, the business history literature on the English Industrial Revolution has focused on competition through process technology. Product design has received less attention and there is little consensus over its source, nature, and contribution to firm competitiveness. Lever Brothers’ aspirational advertisements for mass-produced soap in the late nineteenth century have been cited as evidence of successful competition through product design. Conversely, the poverty of designs provided by English manufacturers during the nineteenth century has been identified as an influence on the development of the Arts and Crafts movement in around 1870.Footnote 7 The failure of English firms to invest in design training for their workers resulted, Derek Aldcroft argues, in a skills shortage and gave the competitive advantage to other countries whose companies promoted training.Footnote 8
Drawing on business records from leading firms in key locations in the English pottery, cotton, and silk industries from about 1750 to 1860, the article examines both the role of product design in the competitive strategies of businesses in those industries, and the sources of the designs used. We consider whether enterprises were proactive or reactive in product design innovation by analyzing the appearance of the products created and how the designs were procured. The article identifies four design procurement strategies: copying (direct imitation and adaptation), commissioning, capacity building, and collaboration, as explained below.
We find a wide range of influences on business strategies, and evidence that product design was identified as an important source of competitive advantage by proactive firms in the period 1750–1860, as indicated by Blaszczyk and Mary Schoeser.Footnote 9 We find that attempts were made to initiate improvements in product design, including through collaboration at the sector level, by some proactive firm owners, by their employees, and by central government. However tensions also arose between firms over the relevance of innovation in design and over specific design procurement strategies. Such differences in outlook posed challenges for collaboration, as the work of Mary Rose has also demonstrated.Footnote 10
Our research reveals that leading Manchester cotton, Macclesfield silk, and Staffordshire pottery firms used a wide range of strategies for procuring designs. Business strategies were shaped by the structure of the sector a company operated in, its distribution channel, the geographical scope of the final demand for its product (e.g., domestic or international), the extent of worldwide competition, its access to science and technology, the framework of government policy, and the degree of intellectual property protection. However firms had choices: they could be proactive or reactive.
The Structure of the English Cotton, Silk, and Pottery Sectors
Textile production in both the cotton and silk sectors involved a number of different types of firms, each with a responsibility for a different stage of production. Manufacturers usually operated their own mills and could specialize in weaving or printing. Pattern drawers, chemists, colorists, and engravers supplied specialist skills to manufacturers, either as self-employed individuals, as independent firms working to contract, or as salaried employees working in-house. Subscription pattern suppliers also emerged in the early nineteenth century. Textiles were sold as interim goods to independent merchants who distributed them at home and abroad; in some cases, however, manufacturers integrated forward and handled distribution themselves.
Textile production was clustered in different areas with specific characteristics. From the mid-eighteenth century, Paisley (Scotland) and Carlisle (England) manufactured and printed cotton-blend shawls for the domestic and European markets.Footnote 11 Leicestershire, Yorkshire, and Norfolk had long histories of textile production, especially in woolen and wool-blend goods for the low- and middle-income-market segments. Manchester's cotton industry developed around 1780 and was aided by a damp climate for spinning, water power for mills, and canal access to the international port of Liverpool through which raw cotton was imported and textile products exported. We selected this industry for study because of its historic importance in the process of industrialization and because its activities have been thoroughly examined in the business history literature, notably through the work of Rose, David Jeremy, and through Philip Sykas's work in identifying key design archives.Footnote 12 Art and fashion historians have provided important details on the institutional context to design education while global historians have expanded our knowledge of the sources of raw materials and dyes.Footnote 13
The history of the silk industry in England and its performance relative to other countries has been the subject of detailed examination by Schoeser and Natalie Rothstein.Footnote 14 Production of silk in England was clustered in Spitalfields in London, which specialized in high-end products for domestic and export markets, and in clusters in “Coventry, Derbyshire, Essex, Hampshire, Leicester, Nottingham, Norfolk, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Scotland and Ireland.”Footnote 15 The Macclesfield silk industry developed around 1750 as an extension of the town's existing industry of button making. We selected Macclesfield because it has been extensively studied by textile historians and local historians.Footnote 16
Less information is available on the organization of production and distribution in the pottery industry at the start of our period of study. The earliest potters were single master craftsmen or family firms. By around 1750 partnerships were more common—often one partner provided manufacturing experience and the other capital and/or expertise in marketing and distribution. Decoration through the use of glazes was generally done in the factory, but specialist freelancers or firms might be employed to undertake enameling, sculpting, and transfer printing.Footnote 17 Pottery was sold as finished goods. Some manufacturers sold to wholesalers, who then sold to retailers. Other manufacturers, like Wedgwood and Bentley, sold directly to consumers through showrooms.Footnote 18
In England, Staffordshire was a noted center for stoneware but other areas also had their own specialties, including Bristol and London for delftware.Footnote 19 We selected Staffordshire's pottery firms because their product design strategies have been identified as important by Blaszczyk. The activities of Wedgwood and Bentley have been examined from a business history perspective by Robin Holt and Andrew Popp, Neil McKendrick, and Eric Robinson, from an innovation perspective by Mark Dodgson, from an art historical perspective by Robin Reilly and Hilary Young, and from a local history perspective by Reginald Haggar, Steven Shapin, and Martyn Walker.Footnote 20
Our evidence is drawn from six leading firms in the Manchester cotton sector, three leading firms in the Macclesfield silk sector, and one leading firm in the Staffordshire pottery sector. The criteria for selection was possession of surviving business records; survival of covering the patterns produced (as recorded in Philip Sykas's catalog); inclusion in contemporary reference sources such as John Graham's History of the Printworks in the Manchester District from 1760 to 1846 or in the records of local institutions.Footnote 21 Table 1 summarizes for each firm its period of operation, the fabrics it produced, the distribution of its products, the market segment that it served, its design procurement strategies, and whether they were proactive or reactive. Where information on a topic is unavailable then “not specified” is recorded. The primary sources consulted are listed at the bottom of the table. Records of institutions operating in the three locations and academic analysis of their content were consulted in addition to firm records.Footnote 22 Additional contextual information on the performance of individual firms and of sectors as a whole was provided from contemporary diaries, books, and newspaper reports.Footnote 23
Table 1 The Firms Examined
Sources: Peel, Yates and Co.: John Graham, History of the Printworks in the Manchester District from 1760 to 1846 (n.p., n.d.), Ms ff.667.3/G1, Manchester Archives, Manchester, U.K. (hereafter, MA), 416; and The Designer's Letter-book 1806–1813 Bury Printworks, D.1–1971, Bolton Museums, Bolton, U.K. Thomas and Robert Parker: Graham, History, MA, 387. Broadoak Printworks: Benjamin Hargreaves, Messrs Hargreaves’ Calico Printworks at Accrington and Recollections of Broad Oaks (Accrington, 1882); and Diary of John Lightfoot Junior's Trip to France October 1854, Lightfoot Family Notebooks and Documents, Broad Oak Printworks, M75/1, 2 and M75 II, Green 1304 and 1305, MA. James Thomson Brothers and Sons at Primrose Printworks: James Thomson Brothers and Sons Pricing Book 1853, BR f.667.2/T4, MA. Ritchie, Steuart and Co: Ritchie, Steuart and Co. Bombay Shipment Book Warehouseman's Record of Printed Chintzes and Woven Cottons Shipping to Bombay and Calcutta May 1822–Aug. 1823, M75/Design Department 3, Green 1290, MA. The Strines Printing Company: Registered Patterns, 6 vols., 1870–1876, 1877–1881, M75/Historical Collection 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, Green 1323–1328, MA. Brocklehurst Fabrics: Mary Crozier, An Old Silk Family, 1745–1945: The Brocklehursts of Brocklehurst-Whiston Amalgamated Limited (Aberdeen, 1947). John Godwin and Sons: Cotton Sample Books L1219 P122, and The Collection of Design Books from the Studio of John Godwin and Sons 1875–1901, both in John Godwin and Sons Archive 1860–1950, Macclesfield Museums, Macclesfield Silk Museum, Macclesfield, U.K. (hereafter, Macclesfield). William Whiston and Sons Ltd. Langley Printworks: Langley Archive Filings, Border and Quarters Series, Macclesfield. Wedgwood and Bentley: Trustees of the Wedgwood Museum, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood 3 vols. (Manchester, 1903–1906); and A. Finer and G. Savage, eds., The Selected Letters of Josiah Wedgwood (London, 1965).
* not specified
Debate on the Extent of Innovation
Design procurement strategies were shaped by a number of important factors: the structure of the sector the firm operated in; its distribution channel; the geographical scope of the final demand for its products (e.g., domestic or international); and the extent of worldwide competition. Participation in international markets exposed a firm to greater competition than domestic markets alone, with the strength of competition potentially determining the importance of being proactive. The use of intermediaries or middlemen to distribute products as opposed to direct selling affected the feedback of information from the customer. The companies’ access to science and technology, the framework of government policy, and the degree of intellectual property protection could influence its choice of design procurement strategy.
A debate existed among contemporaries, and has continued between business historians, regarding the extent of innovation in English firms from about 1750 to 1860 and their performance relative to those on the Continent and in America. In the following paragraphs, we summarize the key elements of this debate from the perspective of both sides. Advocates of the successful performance of English firms point to evidence of high standards of product design, strong domestic and export performance, leadership in technology, success in chemistry, government support for education, and the presence of copyright protection. Manchester firms, it is argued, were able to use their first-mover advantage in technology to produce well-printed designs on high quality fabric at a competitive price for low- and middle-income consumers.Footnote 24 Firms responded to consumer preferences in the domestic market for spots, stripes, and florals in dress designs and in export markets for variations on traditional designs.Footnote 25 More elaborate figurative designs might reach a mass-market consumer base as printed handkerchiefs.Footnote 26
Strong performance in domestic and export markets has been cited as evidence that consumers liked the products provided.Footnote 27 Edmund Potter, writing in 1852, estimated that in 1851 Great Britain had exported 15,544,000 pieces of printed cloth to twenty-eight overseas markets, and he estimated that 4,500,000 had reached the domestic market.Footnote 28 France, he suggested, had lower levels of production and its market segmentation by income focused on high-income consumers. A new protectionist tariff policy introduced in America in 1814 contributed to the “premature” emergence of a mass-production cotton industry.Footnote 29 However, J. R. McCulloch, writing in 1844, argued that the high costs of production and the absence of American competition in the export sector limited the threat posed to the English cotton sector.Footnote 30
Contemporaries detected strengths and weaknesses in English silk production. McCulloch suggested that protectionism meant that the English silk sector lacked the “spirit of innovation” witnessed in the cotton sector, but perceived English manufacturers as leading in the manufacture of “plain silk goods and all mixed manufactures” and the French in “the ribands, figured gauzes and light fancy goods.”Footnote 31 However he suggested that English manufacturers were struggling to maintain their competitive edge in the face of “the greater attention paid to the art of designing in Lyons, the consequence of better tastes of the artists, and the superior brightness and lustre of their colours.”Footnote 32
Production technology allowed English cotton manufacturers in particular to compete on price. The invention of multithread spinning machines in Lancashire from the 1760s onward increased quantity and improved the quality of the thread. Power looms were invented in Lancashire in about 1770 although they did not enter widespread commercial use until the 1820s. They allowed cloth to be woven faster and more evenly compared to handlooms. The two technologies coexisted, during our period of study, with handloom weaving continuing to be used for high-quality wool and silk fabrics.Footnote 33 Machine printing using rollers, invented in the mid-1780s in Lancashire, was a faster alternative to the traditional process of hand printing using wooden blocks, although again the two types of technology coexisted. The printing process was further accelerated by the invention in Manchester in 1808 of a mechanized process to engrave designs onto rollers. Jeremy and Schoeser have demonstrated that this Lancashire technology was diffused overseas.Footnote 34 Reciprocal benefits between production technology and design could be obtained including, Schoeser argues, design expertise from French firms who adopted the technology. In the silk sector, intricate designs were achieved through the adoption by English manufacturers of the Jacquard mechanism, invented in France in 1801 and widely disseminated from 1820. Pottery production advanced with the development of small portable muffle kilns, appropriate for the firing of painted ware, and the invention of transfer printing in 1752.Footnote 35
Chemical research accelerated production and increased the variety of products offered. Bleaching powder, invented in the late eighteenth century, shortened the bleaching process from months to a day.Footnote 36 Textiles became more colorful, particularly from the 1820s when rainbow printing permitted “multi-color in one operation” and again in the 1850s when the gradation of colors “sharp to hazy” was introduced.Footnote 37 The invention of new ceramic bodies, notably Jasperware, gave Josiah Wedgwood and his business partner, Thomas Bentley, a competitive advantage over other manufacturers and provided opportunities for decorative modeling.Footnote 38 Wedgwood's improvements to the color and glaze of Staffordshire creamware facilitated the application of pattern by paint.Footnote 39
Design education at the regional and national level had the potential to maintain the competitive performance of English firms relative to their Continental counterparts. C. P. Darcy has argued that Lancashire's textile sector derived a competitive advantage from the early investment in design education provided by Literary and Philosophical Societies and Mechanics’ Institutes.Footnote 40 Quentin Bell's work has drawn attention to the establishment of government schools of design in London and the provinces as a result of the 1835 Select Committee of Arts and Manufactures.Footnote 41 The committee's recommendations were influenced by testimony of the design training provided to French manufacturers by the French government, notably the School of Drawing founded in Lyons in 1756 and funded by the French government from 1780.Footnote 42
Intellectual property rights could be strengthened through copyright protection. The Designing and Printing of Linen Act 1787 provided copyright protection for linen, cotton, calico, and muslins for two months for designers, printers, and proprietors with an extension to three months approved in 1794.Footnote 43 The Copyright and Designs Acts 1839 (I) and (II) added other woven and mixed fabrics, and included Ireland. The second 1839 Act encompassed all manufactured articles and it required firms to display their details on the fabric.Footnote 44 The Ornamental Designs Act of 1842 extended the copyright on dress patterns to nine months and on those for furnishings to three years. These acts, Lesley Ellis Miller and David Greysmith suggest, encouraged investment in design and deterred piracy.Footnote 45
Proponents of English firm failure have pointed to evidence of poor product design, too great a focus on the market segments of low- and middle-income consumers, lack of investment in education, and the external challenges of import tariffs and free trade. Responsibility for failure has been attributed partly to firms and partly to factors beyond their control.Footnote 46
Poor design was present in the textile sector, contemporaries and historians suggest. Blame was placed on consumers by a commentator of 1747 who suggested that “the changeable foible of the ladies” meant that an ability to “invent new whims” was more important for an apprentice than “great taste in Painting, nor the Principles of Drawing.”Footnote 47 Others blamed firms. Peter Floud considered English furnishing fabrics to deteriorate in design from 1835 onward and blamed poor design on firms’ decisions to introduce “inconsistent elements” and to use only a limited color palate.Footnote 48
Failure of firms and the English government to invest in technical education for workers contributed, Toshio Kusamitsu and Aldcroft argue, to low standards of design. Kusamitsu argued that new technology and the division of labor caused workers to lose their traditional craft skills.Footnote 49 Firms had little incentive to provide new forms of education, he argued, because mass production was profitable and, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, intellectual property protection was limited. Aldcroft proposed that the legacy of lack of investment, was that English firms lost their competitive advantage to countries that provided design education for their workers.Footnote 50
The narrative of strong performance in domestic and overseas markets by Manchester cotton firms in particular was questioned by contemporaries and subsequently by historians. America's protectionist policies aided its cotton industry while evidence given at inquiries into the 1860 free trade treaty between England and France, for example, hinted at increasing competition on price and quality from France.Footnote 51
Another strand of research has focused on the explanation for differences between the main industrial locations where key textile firms were clustered. Rose has suggested that attitudes to collaboration were a key distinction between the Massachusetts and Lancashire cotton sectors.Footnote 52 Lancashire was characterized by family firms in “intense horizontal competition” and “over-specialization in vertical integration.”Footnote 53 Conversely, Massachusetts had bigger firms producing “largely complementary cloths.”Footnote 54 Collaboration in government lobbying, for example, was more common among Massachusetts firms than Lancashire ones, whose owners were too diversified in their backgrounds and interests to be able to work together in a unified manner.Footnote 55
Some areas of consensus can be found across these contributions. The literature summarized above generally agrees that at the start of our period of study, leading firms in Manchester cotton, Macclesfield silk, and Staffordshire pottery were performing well in both the domestic and export markets and making effective use of new technology. There are indications, however, that as our period progressed, the business environment became more competitive for both the domestic and export market. As competition intensified, the differences between proactive and reactive firms became clear.
Strategies for Design Procurement
In this section, we outline four strategies by which designs could be procured, and examine the choices made by the firms in our study.
Copying
Copying could occur in two forms: direct imitation (the influence of the designs of contemporary competitors) and adaptation (influence of older items, such as archaeological artifacts or books published for designers). Wedgwood and Bentley's success has been attributed to their ability to directly imitate designs from the classical past to meet a revival of interest in it—an approach that they engaged in alongside their commissioning of new designs. However, the extent to which firms in Manchester and Macclesfield relied on direct imitation of their competitors and on the adaptation of existing designs was debated by contemporaries and has continued to be debated by historians, as detailed above.
The use of copying, and the form it took, appears to have been heavily influenced by a firm's market segment, access to science and technology, and the strength of intellectual property protection. Wedgwood and Bentley took the fashion for neoclassical architecture and applied it to interiors, using copying by both adaptation and imitation to demonstrate technical expertise and to reach consumers with high and middle incomes. Using ceramic technology, they replicated glass and stone items discovered in archaeological digs or collected during grand tours by aristocratic patrons, such as, the famous Portland Vase.Footnote 56 In 1787, the company founded a modeling studio in Rome where English and Italian modelers supplied “casts, copies or adaptions of antique bas-reliefs.”Footnote 57 These items resonated with the fashion for the neoclassical and made fitting additions to the new homes designed in that style. Affluent customers lent Wedgwood and Bentley items to draw inspiration from or directly copy. Such patronage provided the firm with a stepping-stone to royal patronage and lent cachet to its mass-produced midrange products.
Manchester calico printers Peel, Yates, and Co. engaged in copying by direct imitation and adaptation when producing dress fabrics for middle-income consumers. The London designer and printworks owner William Kilburn petitioned in 1787 for an extension of the copyright of designs to three months in order to stop Robert Peel and Co., of Bury, from creating imitations of his new designs within ten days and undercutting his prices by 2 shillings.Footnote 58 This appears not to have entirely deterred Peel and Co. from the strategy, however. Beside a sample fabric produced by a competitor in about 1806 is a comment from a manager to the designer noting that, “this is new today and very pretty it is and you would do well to copy it as near as you dare.”Footnote 59 The demands of the export market, in contrast, encouraged The Strines Printing Company of Manchester to adapt traditional Indian designs.Footnote 60 Designs from other cultures, or based on unfamiliar objects, were a legitimate source of inspiration for the Macclesfield designers John Godwin and Sons. Their design library included Oriental images and those of items, such as coral, that were hard to obtain. However, the firm also published books of its original designs.Footnote 61
A key advantage of copying for businesses aiming at the mass market and a low- to middle-income consumer base was that, as they perceived it, they were maintaining a competitive sales price for consumers and avoiding excess investment that resulted in higher prices for consumers. The speed of fashion, representatives of some firms argued, was such that the life cycle of any one design was very limited. With only a short period in which to recoup costs and make a profit, firms wanted designs that they knew would sell successfully. By imitating or adapting the designs of French or domestic competitors, a manufacturer could continue to compete on cost and swiftly respond to consumer preferences.
The disadvantages of direct imitation and adaptation were, however, recognized by some firms using the strategy and often commented on by those that did not. Wedgwood and Bentley noted the difficulties in obtaining a distinctive identity for their products and the need to set the trend, not just follow it. When selecting new subjects in 1771, Wedgwood commented to Bentley that “shells and weeds have been somewhat hackneyed in prints and printed linens” while “dead game” was novel and would be attractive to “country gentlemen.”Footnote 62 Firms that invested heavily in research and development resented their designs being imitated by competitors in the same sector, as Kilburn's comments demonstrated. Wedgwood and Bentley also became frustrated at the unauthorized replication of their designs, particularly the small cameos, which Wedgwood commented to his nephew in 1790 was “provoking . . . after we have been at so much pain and expense in procuring new models.”Footnote 63 Questions were also raised as to how cost effective copying actually was. Critics suggested that it would be cheaper for companies to invest in training their own staff instead of purchasing French designs.Footnote 64
Solutions were proposed to this perceived reliance, by Manchester firms in particular, on copying. Firm owners Edmund Potter of Dinting Vale Printworks and James Thomson of Primrose Printworks successfully campaigned for the extension of copyright in the 1839 acts and the 1842 Ornamental Designs Act.Footnote 65 They pointed to precedents in France, where copyright protection had commenced in 1737 for silk and 1793 for “all products of the industrial arts” and, in an act of 1805, for a duration chosen by the manufacturer.Footnote 66 The Strines Printing Company, Primrose Printworks, and printworks run by the Peel family were among the firms that registered designs after the passing of the 1842 act.Footnote 67 An improvement in the design training of firm owners and employees was also proposed as a solution, as discussed in the section on collaboration.
Commissioning
Commissioning is defined as the use of contract designers. These designers were hired directly or through agents. John Godwin and Sons and William Whiston and Sons Langley Printworks (both of Macclesfield) were agents operating in the silk industry. Unfortunately, no information can be obtained on the careers of individual freelance designers operating in Manchester in this period. Of the firms in our study, the evidence relates mostly to the activities of Wedgwood and Bentley. The equestrian artist George Stubbs was already a famous figure when he was commissioned by the firm in 1775 to create some ceramic plaques, which Wedgwood hoped would “establish the fashion.”Footnote 68 Stubbs perceived an opportunity to continue earlier experiments in painting with enamels, using large ceramic plaques instead of smaller copper plates, and to extend his repertoire to cover history and portraits. The collaboration was not a great success, however. Wedgwood was frustrated by Stubbs's “hackney'd” replication of his previous equestrian artworks, and his lack of novel designs, while commentators mocked Stubbs's “hobby horse of enamel portrait painting.”Footnote 69 In contrast, the firm's association with amateur artist Lady Elizabeth Templetown, which commenced in 1783, was smoother and resulted in at least fifteen pieces depicting women and children.Footnote 70 The renowned sculptor John Flaxman, meanwhile, designed bespoke pieces and everyday products, such as candlesticks, seals, cups, and teapots, during a relationship spanning twenty years.
Employing designers on commission was advantageous for firms seeking a fresh source of designs through a flexible arrangement. In some instances, the business could avoid incurring training or capacity-building expenses (as described below). Commissioning a celebrity could open a new consumer base. Potential problems, however, included a misalignment of agendas between artist and firm and, in cases of lower-profile freelancers, the same designer could work for a company's competitors.
Capacity building
Capacity building is defined as building internal competence through recruitment and training in-house including use of apprentices and in-house design studios. It enabled firms to obtain benefits often associated with vertical integration. Wedgwood and Bentley's activities in Etruria have been well documented, but less well-known is their capacity building in the London decorating studio they founded in 1769.Footnote 71 The studio was intended to meet increased customer demand for a firm's products, as generated through the firm's London showroom, and was aided by adoption of muffle kilns but later threatened by advances in transfer printing.Footnote 72 Unable to find sufficiently skilled painters for his London studio, Wedgwood wrote to Bentley on May 19, 1770: “we must make them. There is no other way. We have stepped forward beyond other manufacturers and we must be content to train up hands to suit our purpose.”Footnote 73 He expanded this point a few days later, proposing the foundation of a drawing and modeling school for twelve-year-old boys: “to train up artists for ourselves . . . and when you wanted any hands we could draft them out of this school. The paintings upon these vases are from W & B (Wedgwood and Bentley) school—so it may be said 1000 years hence.”Footnote 74 Wedgwood advocated training from a young age and in 1767 took in a boy to apprentice in modeling and drawing for seven years “at a moderate expense” whose end results Wedgwood felt would “look infinitely richer than anything made out of moulds”—indeed this apprentice became the chief modeler at Etruria.Footnote 75
To justify the time and expense incurred in training, a steady flow of commissions was required. By 1772 Wedgwood was questioning the financial viability of the studio, particularly in light of improvements in transfer printing.Footnote 76 In 1773, Catherine the Great of Russia commissioned a dinner service for fifty people decorated with English landscapes, which provided a welcome source of work, but its completion in 1774 raised further questions over the viability of employing thirty painters. Trials were made of polychrome tea sets, inspired by the Frog Service, but were not extended into full production. The studio closed in 1774 when all of the company's London activities were amalgamated into the new Greek Street showrooms.Footnote 77
Broadoak Printworks built capacity in dyeing and printing in response to new opportunities in the fields of science and technology and in domestic markets. It used four forms of capacity building: in-house training for members of the owners’ family; development of an apprenticeship scheme; collaboration with a local family of dyers; and a forty-year alliance with a London printhouse. Broadoak was run by the Hargreaves and Dugdale partnership from 1812 and Benjamin Hargreaves, a member of the family, produced an account of its operations from 1812 to 1853, when the firm was sold.Footnote 78 Several members of the Hargreaves family were trained in-house. At the age of 16, Benjamin Hargreaves commenced training in the drawing department (for one year), progressing to the cutting shop (where the pattern blocks were cut), and finishing in the engraving department. His education culminated in 18 months at the University of Edinburgh, studying botany, chemistry, and natural philosophy.Footnote 79
Together with his brother Thomas, Benjamin compiled a book of “all the finest specimens of prints we could collect, done by both French and English houses . . . this book (the work of leisure hours) was a source of real pleasure, for we could institute comparisons as to the designs, the engravings and the colors of different houses, showing whether we were behind or in advance of other printers.”Footnote 80 Other family members showed an innate talent for particular activities. In 1830, Robert Hargreaves was promoted to junior partner and was described as being “successful in designs,” especially “very fine patterns with the pencil, some of which might be compared to engravings.” He had also acquired “some knowledge of practical chemistry and mixing of colors.”Footnote 81
Apprenticeships also built capacity. In 1815 James Cunliffe began a seven-year apprenticeship as a pattern designer under the direction of Thomas Hargreaves. He was relocated to the Manchester offices (run by Dugdale) and was active until 1827, when ill health required that he transfer to a managerial role.Footnote 82 Cunliffe's contemporary, O'Leury, was less diligent but had a talented son. According to Benjamin Hargreaves, “there was no need of running to Paris for ideas. The native brains were sufficient without borrowing from foreigners.”Footnote 83
Three generations of the Lightfoot family's expertise—John I, sons John Emanuel and Thomas, and grandson John II—contributed to Broadoak's capacity in dyeing.Footnote 84 The family was employed by the Hargreaves but continued at Broadoak after the Hargreaves sold it, with Thomas and John Emanuel entering a partnership with the new owners, F. W. Grafton and Co. in 1855.Footnote 85 Their experiments were recorded in a series of notebooks, which survive today, as was John II's visit to French printworks in 1854.Footnote 86 The Lightfoots created recipes for new dyes and resolved errors in existing ones. In the 1860s John II made two significant innovations: the creation of aniline black and a new technique for printing blues and greens.Footnote 87 In contrast, attempts to commission work externally were problematic. In 1844, according to Benjamin Hargreaves, the firm purchased from a Frenchman the secret of fixing a dahlia color that had been exhibited at the 1844 Paris Exhibition.Footnote 88 Dahlia dresses sold well for the firm in the London market, but unfortunately, despite being “guaranteed as fast,” customers found that the color faded in sunshine. The resulting returns and refunds cost Broadoak over £1,000.Footnote 89 For Benjamin Hargreaves, this adeptly illustrated that “the more Broadoak relied upon its own resources the more it prospered.”Footnote 90
Broadoak's mutually beneficial connection with the London printhouse Liddiard and Co. began in 1811 and lasted forty years. Liddiard and Co. was “unable to supply the demand” for their products and the link with Broadoak created “a large home business” for both firms.Footnote 91 An additional benefit was the “superior” styles created by Liddiard's, which Bemjamin Hargreaves attributed to the “extreme good taste” of the elder Mr. Liddiard who “studied nature in all her forms and beauty, and was as clever in horticultural designs, as in giving directions for patterns for calico printing. Wherever he went—and he seemed sometimes to travel for that purpose alone—he gathered ideas and saw beauties, that he never failed to turn to a practical account.”Footnote 92
Procuring designs through capacity building could allow a firm to create and maintain a competitive advantage over its rivals. For Wedgwood and Bentley it permitted quick responsiveness to consumer feedback indicating the need for new designs. Challenges could occur, however, including the constant stream of work required to cover staff wages and the ability to sell the product at a price that covered the investment in training and equipment. This financial balance eventually proved impossible for Broadoak, causing the Hargreaves family to sell the company.
Industrial espionage, meanwhile, was perceived as a threat by Wedgwood and Bentley.Footnote 93 Workers trained in-house were attractive to rival firms looking to steal the firm's design and technical secrets. By separating the stages of production Wedgwood improved efficiency but also prevented any employee acquiring an overall knowledge of production and design. During the expansion of the London studio Wedgwood noted that “We cannot avoid taking in strangers and shall be obliged sometimes to part with them again, we should therefore prevent as much as possible their taking any part of our business along with them.”Footnote 94 Employees did indeed make such attempts, as revealed by an intercepted application letter from a Wedgwood employee to a factory in Belgium, which imitated English stoneware and creamware.Footnote 95 Wedgwood was also centrally involved in the notorious legal case against the Danish industrial spy, Ljungberg, who was reported to have stolen numerous Wedgwood drawings and models.Footnote 96
Collaboration
Collaboration is defined as firms in the same sector pooling resources with each other to provide design training. It is distinct from collaboration centered on a single firm. The potential to derive a competitive advantage from collaboration to improve design education was recognized at a fairly early date in Manchester. Advocates for improvement used evidence of best practices in other sectors to illustrate their argument. They promoted the strong performance of Manchester and England in the international marketplace as a common goal across Manchester businesses, one that united the interests of rival firms and of employers and employees.
The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society was founded in 1781 and included cotton manufacturers among its members. Innovation in design was the subject of one of the first meetings. Thomas Henry, a chemist and manufacturer, argued that a manufacturer with a taste for “drawing and design” would “possess considerable advantages over his less accomplished neighbours” in procuring patterns because “his imagination would continually supply him with something new” and he would not be “dependent on others for the patterns of his fabrics.”Footnote 97 “Supereminent taste” he argued, “distinguished the productions of Wedgwood and Bentley above all their competitors.” Manchester fine cotton and silk manufacturers already “excelled” their competitors in “strength of fabric” and might next seek to “equal [them] in elegance of pattern.”Footnote 98 In 1783, the Society put those theories into practice by founding a College of Arts and Sciences whose aim was to connect the “improvement of the mind, with the proper attentions to business” through lectures on topics including history and chemistry.Footnote 99 However, this early attempt at collaborative training closed for unknown reasons in 1787/88.
The Mechanics’ Institute movement, providing education for workers, commenced in the early nineteenth century and spread from Glasgow to numerous other locations. The Manchester Mechanics Institute was founded in 1824, during the first stage of the movement's expansion.Footnote 100 Classes initially focused on “mathematics and mechanical and architectural drawing,” but in 1830 “landscape, figure, flower and general ornamental drawing” was introduced and in 1840 drawing pattern designs.Footnote 101 The perception of an increasingly competitive international climate may have influenced the changes made in 1830 and 1840. An official appeal by the Institute for funds in 1831, directed at the general public, alluded to prevalent attitudes in America, France, and Switzerland “that an intelligent people make a powerful country,” while “the active and appalling struggle of foreign competition” was alluded to in the Institute's fundraising appeal of 1839.Footnote 102
The central government established the 1835 Committee of Arts and Manufactures to examine innovation in product design as a source of national competitive advantage. The Committee recommended that standards of design in England could be improved by the emulation of the state-sponsored training available in France. Schools of design were founded in London and several manufacturing towns and cities.Footnote 103 Collaboration between firms in the same sector was promoted as a solution to strengthen national manufacturing performance. In 1838, a school of design was founded in Manchester through public subscription and a government grant, to teach “the application of machinery to the transfer of patterns.”Footnote 104 A leading advocate of the school was James Thomson of Primrose Printworks.Footnote 105
In Macclesfield, evening classes in drawing provided by Macclesfield Sunday School appear to have been the earliest initiative in collaborative training.Footnote 106 Former pupils then requested help from a local manufacturer and Member of Parliament John Brocklehurst to establish a mutual improvement society. Consequently, The Macclesfield Society for Acquiring Useful Knowledge was founded in 1835, part of a second wave of foundations of Mechanics’ Institutes precipitated by the reduction in 1833–1834 of working hours for employees under the age of eighteen.Footnote 107 In his annual presidential addresses, Brocklehurst frequently alluded to both the moral and economic benefits of worker education. In 1843 he stated that were the protective duty on silk to be removed, this might “again precipitate the trade into distress, similar to that of 1826, or that in subsequent periods, and complaint to the government or remonstrance become requisite; and in reply the trade might be met with the old taunt – improve your skill and machinery.”Footnote 108
There were positive developments, however. In 1843, the Society “reported that among the members instructed by the Society in the 8 years of its operation, 11 were holding responsible jobs, of which two were designers for silk houses.”Footnote 109 In 1852, following guidance from central government and momentum from Brocklehurst, a School of Art and Science was founded and was credited with producing seventy-seven silk designers in the period 1853–1873.Footnote 110
In Staffordshire collaboration was initiated by firm owners through the Pottery Philosophical Society, which existed from 1819–1835. Little evidence survives of the Society's activities but the fortnightly lecture program in 1820 included the topics of “The Use and Application of Chemistry to the Arts and Manufactures” and “The Analysis of Clay.”Footnote 111 Nearly half the founding members were firm owners or glaze manufacturers, although its illustrious patron, Josiah Wedgwood II, had limited engagement with its activities.Footnote 112 The reasons for its closure are unrecorded, but the Society was facing financial difficulties after its first year.
In contrast, The Pottery Mechanics’ Institute founded in Hanley in 1834 was more successful. Josiah Wedgwood II was active in its establishment, alongside the Rector of Stoke and other leading citizens. The engagement of Wedgwood II with collaborative training represented a shift in the firm's attitude to the topic. As discussed earlier, Wedgwood and Bentley were noted for their in-house capacity building, although Wedgwood made one unsuccessful attempt to create a collaborative research organization.Footnote 113 While his successors changed strategies, there are indications that other firms invested in capacity building. George Woolliscroft Rhead and Frederick Alfred Rhead suggested that the arrival of French refugees from the Revolution of 1848, coupled with the Anglo-Prussian War of 1870, resulted in the employment of French painters and modelers to train staff at Minton.Footnote 114
In 1847, branch schools of the London School of Design were founded in Shelton, Stoke, and Hanley as part of the central government initiative, although the art classes run by the Mechanics’ Institute continued until 1853. This was followed in 1853 by a short-lived School of Design in Burslem, which was supposed to develop into an institution for North Staffordshire, and a branch school in Newcastle-under-Lyme.Footnote 115 Masters included the French modelers, Hugues Protat and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse.Footnote 116
Collaborative training posed problems in addition to promoting opportunities. Differences of opinion emerged between firms and between firms and central government. Not all firms agreed that their workforce required additional training in design. In Macclesfield some manufacturers complained that collaborative training encouraged design theft and diverted resources from other key areas.Footnote 117 Tensions arose over curriculum design and the relative merits of focusing on the fine arts of painting and sculpture as opposed to applied arts such as pattern design. Applied arts interested the firm owners, but were perceived to be “subordinate branches of design” by many of the tutors employed by the schools.Footnote 118 The first headmaster of Manchester's school, portrait painter John Zephaniah Bell, was unpopular with manufacturers and resigned when the conditions of a Board of Trade grant of 1842 placed greater emphasis on teaching design.Footnote 119 By 1846, however, the new director of the central London School reverted the focus of the curriculum to fine arts, particularly the copying of ancient statues. Despite an unpopular reception in Manchester, and the rapid resignation of two headmasters, in 1853 the School of Design was renamed the School of Art in keeping with the new focus.Footnote 120 In Macclesfield, the School of Art and Science faced criticisms from manufacturers for its “theoretical” curriculum.Footnote 121
These conflicts resulted in precarious financial situations for the Manchester and Macclesfield schools in their early years. Both institutions found it difficult to cover their running costs, despite their supporters arguing that the schools were a cheaper alternative for manufacturers than purchasing designs from France.Footnote 122 In 1839, public subscriptions and donations to the Manchester school, which needed to cover the master's £150 salary and expenses for “plaster casts, books . . . and other equipment,” came to a total of £365.Footnote 123 In Macclesfield, the first subscription drive for the school failed, necessitating a temporary closure.Footnote 124 When the Manchester School of Design achieved a solid financial performance in 1849, partly through admitting paying pupils, it was criticized for accepting pupils “of opulent parentage” to learn a hobby and thereby deviating from its objectives.Footnote 125
Collaborative training had potential benefits, however. Participants, some surviving accounts suggest, saw investment in design as a source of competitive advantage that was beneficial to individual firms, to the careers of their staff, and advantageous to the competitive performance of the sector and location as a whole.Footnote 126
Conclusion
This article has contributed to the debate on the extent of innovation in English firms in the period 1750–1860. We suggest that innovation in product design was recognized as a source of competitive advantage by proactive firms during the period and identify key design procurement strategies that were used by proactive firms. Government policy emphasized competition through product design from 1835 onward, but our findings indicate attempts by firm owners to procure designs to aid competitiveness prior to that date.
Four design procurement strategies were available to firms. Each strategy had its advantages and disadvantages. Copying by adaptation and imitation provided opportunities to demonstrate technical skills and reduced the risk of producing unsellable designs, but subscription services were expensive and the resulting designs often had a short market life span. Copying by imitation caused tensions between proactive and reactive firms. Commissioning provided firms with flexibility but also potentially reduced their control. Capacity building allowed a firm to create a more distinctive product but required heavy investment. Collaborative training was promoted as a solution to improve the ability of English firms to innovate in product design and enhance their competitiveness. However, conflicting agendas emerged between proactive and reactive firms in each sector over the necessity of design education, and between proactive firms and central government over its content.
A number of factors influenced the firm's choice of procurement strategy and its adoption of a proactive or reactive approach to innovation in product design. Improved access to science and technology appears to have been widely embraced, but firms varied in the extent to which they used the new advances to increase production volume (emphasizing competition by price), production quality (finish of product), or product design. Firms also differed in their attitudes to intellectual property protection. Varying perceptions among firms of the extent of international competition in the domestic and export markets incentivized or deterred collaboration. The nature of the industry in which the firms operated appears also to have been relevant. The “intense horizontal competition” and “over-specialization in vertical integration” noted by Rose seems to have posed challenges for collaboration among textile firms in Manchester and Macclesfield.Footnote 127 As a pottery firm, Wedgwood and Bentley sold finished products direct to consumers and were therefore arguably better placed to incorporate customer feedback into design innovations compared to the Manchester cotton and Macclesfield silk firms, who distributed their goods through independent wholesalers. Future research could expand the chronological period to consider procurement strategies prior and subsequent to the Industrial Revolution, and investigate the strategies used by firms in the other centers of pottery, silk, and cotton production.
