You’re reading Age of Invention, my newsletter on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation. This edition went out to over 15,600 subscribers. To support my work, you can upgrade your subscription here: One of the weird things about Britain, despite its being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, is that its financial infrastructure was for a long time remarkably backward. Its “Financial Revolution”, by which both people and the state began to borrow at ever lower interest rates, only really took off in the early eighteenth century — long after London’s extraordinary growth in 1550-1650, when it had suddenly expanded eightfold to become one of Europe’s most important commercial hubs. Indeed, even for much of the late seventeenth century, England lacked many of the most basic financial institutions that had been used for decades and decades by their most important rival and trading partner, the Dutch Republic.
The book Going Dutch by Lisa Jardine has a interesting take on the effect of William of Orange going to Britain and the why the industrial revolution happened in Britain not Holland. Others have pointed this out. also, but I have the above book convenient in my book shelf.
Related, which you probably know about: The Great Transformation, The Institutional Revolution, and Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City.
Almost nobody today knows the Dutch once conquered England. I will concede this is just one of the ways to look at the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as it has also been described as an internal coup. Still, to assure victory, William III sailed with an armada of around 450 vessels (three times the number of the Spanish Armada) from the mainland to England and a year later, the Tower of London was still guarded by Dutch soldiers.
How is this related to the subject of this post? I will tell you. It was the moment Dutch naval and commercial supremacy was replaced by English supremacy because of the transfer of financial expertise and techniques from Holland to England.
Thus it was a Pyrrhic victory.
As you might imagine from the above I am Dutch, so I might be slightly biassed :)
Fascinating - my first comment is that a number of causes are actually symptoms of a deeper cause - presumably better available credit, bills of exchanges, banks, registers, etc are the product of a more cohesive political system. Second, it's deliciously reminiscent of the debate about whether Victorian Britain failed by exporting too much of its capital rather than investing it at home.
What is the gavelkind argument, exactly? Is it that it spreads the wealth more equally and thus directly creates additional wealthy individuals, or that this allows for more financial actors and that this has downstream consequences which eventually results in a wealthier people?
Some of these things sound like they could go either way on increasing wealth, and, given that the British soon became substantially richer, it does seem like some of these things did go the other way!
Glad that you are mentioning the Dutch. I think that they are one of the most important peoples in the origins of modern progress. Much of what we now associate with 17th- and 18th-Century Britain actually arose in the Netherlands and Flanders (and before that in Northern Italy).
Not sure whether you heard, but I recently published a book about the origins of progress, where I go into a little detail on the Dutch Republic and other other Commercial societies. You can check it out at:
I am not sure whether Substack notified you, but I cross-posted this article yesterday. It is part of my series of cross-posting what I believe to be the best progress-related articles.
The book Going Dutch by Lisa Jardine has a interesting take on the effect of William of Orange going to Britain and the why the industrial revolution happened in Britain not Holland. Others have pointed this out. also, but I have the above book convenient in my book shelf.
Learned so much from this post! Thank you.
Related, which you probably know about: The Great Transformation, The Institutional Revolution, and Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City.
A Pyrrhic victory.
Almost nobody today knows the Dutch once conquered England. I will concede this is just one of the ways to look at the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as it has also been described as an internal coup. Still, to assure victory, William III sailed with an armada of around 450 vessels (three times the number of the Spanish Armada) from the mainland to England and a year later, the Tower of London was still guarded by Dutch soldiers.
How is this related to the subject of this post? I will tell you. It was the moment Dutch naval and commercial supremacy was replaced by English supremacy because of the transfer of financial expertise and techniques from Holland to England.
Thus it was a Pyrrhic victory.
As you might imagine from the above I am Dutch, so I might be slightly biassed :)
Fascinating - my first comment is that a number of causes are actually symptoms of a deeper cause - presumably better available credit, bills of exchanges, banks, registers, etc are the product of a more cohesive political system. Second, it's deliciously reminiscent of the debate about whether Victorian Britain failed by exporting too much of its capital rather than investing it at home.
Interesting but maybe a bit naive in places. Relying on Child in particular is not a great idea.
You may already be aware of this paper, but I couldn't help thinking of it:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10887-022-09213-5
What is the gavelkind argument, exactly? Is it that it spreads the wealth more equally and thus directly creates additional wealthy individuals, or that this allows for more financial actors and that this has downstream consequences which eventually results in a wealthier people?
Some of these things sound like they could go either way on increasing wealth, and, given that the British soon became substantially richer, it does seem like some of these things did go the other way!
Glad that you are mentioning the Dutch. I think that they are one of the most important peoples in the origins of modern progress. Much of what we now associate with 17th- and 18th-Century Britain actually arose in the Netherlands and Flanders (and before that in Northern Italy).
Not sure whether you heard, but I recently published a book about the origins of progress, where I go into a little detail on the Dutch Republic and other other Commercial societies. You can check it out at:
https://frompovertytoprogress.com/books/
I also recently launched a YouTube channel on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/@FromPovertyToProgress
A great book about the Dutch Republic is:
First Modern Economy by Jan de Fries
He was actually a professor of mine in the distant past.
You can read a summary of the book here:
https://techratchet.com/2020/04/12/book-summary-first-modern-economy-dutch-economy-1500-1815-by-jan-de-vries/
I am not sure whether Substack notified you, but I cross-posted this article yesterday. It is part of my series of cross-posting what I believe to be the best progress-related articles.