The extraordinary life of John Holker: industrialist, rebel, prisoner, fugitive, soldier, undercover agent, spy-catcher, industrial spymaster, innovation inspector, and nobleman.
That's the thing about ideas, discoveries, or what we often call "intellectual property." They are non-rivalrous. One's use of an idea does not deprive another use of it. Generally speaking, copying is a good thing. It lowers the cost of products, drives up competition, and can trigger faster follow-up innovation, so long as the original inventor still has sufficient incentive to innovate. This all raises the question....do modern IP laws, which have gotten stricter over time, actually promote innovation...or do they now inhibit it by blocking innovation? I have argued that it may be possible to transform patents and other IP into "partially publicly owned" property that balances the trade offs between investment efficiency (invention) and allocative efficiency (dispersion) of new ideas. It's a concept that I refine every few months: https://www.lianeon.org/p/supercharging-innovation
I’ve been having a similar thought lately - even tiny advances in food processing would have had an absolutely gigantic economic impact given just how much of the typical consumption basket it would have accounted for at the time. It’s certainly on my to-check list.
The invention of grain hulling had a massive effect, because the hull material was far more prone to rot than the kernel. You could store hulled grain far longer than whole grain. Japan imported rice-hulling in the late 1800s and beriberi promptly became an upper-class disease- white rice was preferred over that cheap brown rice that the poor folks ate, but rice hulls were often the only source of thiamine in the Japanese diet.
Of course, the British were hardly above this kind of thing when it suited them either. The Lombe Brothers stole silk textile production techniques from Italy, though as far as I know, the Italians had never set up anything like the Lombes' revolutionary water-wheel powered silk mill in Derby, sometimes been called the first factory. Did the British not also steal glass-making techniques from the Venetians? How much other British industrial technology also came from abroad?
Of course! Certainly in the late 16thC and 17thC there was plenty of industrial espionage abroad. 18thC is when the balance shifted towards Britain being the usual target.
On Lombe: they certainly didn’t set up the first factory, and nor was it especially revolutionary by European standards. Have lately been corresponding with someone about this but need to write it up.
Alright, I guess I'm out of date! I await your post on the history of the factory. I suppose this is one of those cases where 'it depends what you mean by (factory)'.
It would be interesting if you could date when it was Britain became targetted for espionage more than any other country, as a proxy on relative technological advancement. Or perhaps it is possible to discern this by just looking at the technologies themselves? You say it was no later than the 1710s, but how far back before that might it be?
One reason its interesting is because it bears on the various theories about the cause/s of the industrial revolution, especially if you take note of which industries Britain was advanced in and which not. For example if Britain was only more advanced in industries connected to say coal/the slave trade/patentable technology/etc, that would elevate those as a possible causal factor.
The Derby thing appears to have crept in due to overenthusiastic museum sign writers, it seems. The definition of factory may also have a bearing - that may be a good hook for the piece actually.
Yes, you’re thinking on exactly the same lines as me on the targeting point. Harris’s work on industrial espionage, which I cited for this story, emerged initially out of him investigating the importance of coal.
Earliest evidence of England’s advantages seems to be from the 1650s, but becomes more prominent by the 1690s. Though we have fewer sources to go off, and they’re not always foreign. Before this there’s certainly recognised improvement in the 1610s from domestic observers, but not clear yet how it translates internationally.
It’s one of the things I’ve been keeping an eye out for though, and must draw it all together at some point (I will certainly have to for the book). 1710s is when France made concerted efforts and Britain banned skilled emigration - so it just gives us a later bound from which to work back from. One thing I’d really like to convey is just how wide the gap had become before 1760, despite quite a lot of catch-up!
Interesting. But this is Europe only. My understanding is that even in the 1710s Britain was still behind places outside Europe in a number of areas - India in cotton spinning and weaving, (and possibly steel?), and China in porcelain. I believe the Chinese had also learned to smelt iron with coke long before Abraham Darby. Am I wrong? Do you know of other examples?
I’m certainly not saying Britain was ahead of *all* countries in *every* industry! Just that in a whole load of them already, improvements were being very jealously looked at by its nearer neighbours - who for these purposes I think are most relevant, because it shows how difficult it was to catch up even when so geographically close.
Yes, fair enough. I admit I was dragging you rather off-topic here onto other territory I find interesting - why it is that Britain can be so advanced in the 1710s in so many things and yet still behind, say, Indian hand spinners as late as, what the 1770s? It seems somewhat of an anomaly, though it isn't the only one (e.g. Chinese porcelain). But I suppose that is a subject for another day.
That's the thing about ideas, discoveries, or what we often call "intellectual property." They are non-rivalrous. One's use of an idea does not deprive another use of it. Generally speaking, copying is a good thing. It lowers the cost of products, drives up competition, and can trigger faster follow-up innovation, so long as the original inventor still has sufficient incentive to innovate. This all raises the question....do modern IP laws, which have gotten stricter over time, actually promote innovation...or do they now inhibit it by blocking innovation? I have argued that it may be possible to transform patents and other IP into "partially publicly owned" property that balances the trade offs between investment efficiency (invention) and allocative efficiency (dispersion) of new ideas. It's a concept that I refine every few months: https://www.lianeon.org/p/supercharging-innovation
Until the late 20th century, Australian department stores directories listed all cotton goods as 'Manchester'.
So, to us colonials, that's what it was.
This makes me wonder about other technology, like grain/wheat milling?
I’ve been having a similar thought lately - even tiny advances in food processing would have had an absolutely gigantic economic impact given just how much of the typical consumption basket it would have accounted for at the time. It’s certainly on my to-check list.
The invention of grain hulling had a massive effect, because the hull material was far more prone to rot than the kernel. You could store hulled grain far longer than whole grain. Japan imported rice-hulling in the late 1800s and beriberi promptly became an upper-class disease- white rice was preferred over that cheap brown rice that the poor folks ate, but rice hulls were often the only source of thiamine in the Japanese diet.
That’s extremely interesting, thank you.
I think the dominant position of wheat flour production in Minneapolis over 50 years was thanks to flour milling technology brought over from Europe
https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-europe
https://pantagraph.com/news/local/hungarian-mill-known-for-its-kossuth-flour/article_97d31f4e-d0fb-11e0-9578-001cc4c002e0.html
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2596941
Of course, the British were hardly above this kind of thing when it suited them either. The Lombe Brothers stole silk textile production techniques from Italy, though as far as I know, the Italians had never set up anything like the Lombes' revolutionary water-wheel powered silk mill in Derby, sometimes been called the first factory. Did the British not also steal glass-making techniques from the Venetians? How much other British industrial technology also came from abroad?
Of course! Certainly in the late 16thC and 17thC there was plenty of industrial espionage abroad. 18thC is when the balance shifted towards Britain being the usual target.
On Lombe: they certainly didn’t set up the first factory, and nor was it especially revolutionary by European standards. Have lately been corresponding with someone about this but need to write it up.
Alright, I guess I'm out of date! I await your post on the history of the factory. I suppose this is one of those cases where 'it depends what you mean by (factory)'.
It would be interesting if you could date when it was Britain became targetted for espionage more than any other country, as a proxy on relative technological advancement. Or perhaps it is possible to discern this by just looking at the technologies themselves? You say it was no later than the 1710s, but how far back before that might it be?
One reason its interesting is because it bears on the various theories about the cause/s of the industrial revolution, especially if you take note of which industries Britain was advanced in and which not. For example if Britain was only more advanced in industries connected to say coal/the slave trade/patentable technology/etc, that would elevate those as a possible causal factor.
The Derby thing appears to have crept in due to overenthusiastic museum sign writers, it seems. The definition of factory may also have a bearing - that may be a good hook for the piece actually.
Yes, you’re thinking on exactly the same lines as me on the targeting point. Harris’s work on industrial espionage, which I cited for this story, emerged initially out of him investigating the importance of coal.
Earliest evidence of England’s advantages seems to be from the 1650s, but becomes more prominent by the 1690s. Though we have fewer sources to go off, and they’re not always foreign. Before this there’s certainly recognised improvement in the 1610s from domestic observers, but not clear yet how it translates internationally.
It’s one of the things I’ve been keeping an eye out for though, and must draw it all together at some point (I will certainly have to for the book). 1710s is when France made concerted efforts and Britain banned skilled emigration - so it just gives us a later bound from which to work back from. One thing I’d really like to convey is just how wide the gap had become before 1760, despite quite a lot of catch-up!
Interesting. But this is Europe only. My understanding is that even in the 1710s Britain was still behind places outside Europe in a number of areas - India in cotton spinning and weaving, (and possibly steel?), and China in porcelain. I believe the Chinese had also learned to smelt iron with coke long before Abraham Darby. Am I wrong? Do you know of other examples?
I’m certainly not saying Britain was ahead of *all* countries in *every* industry! Just that in a whole load of them already, improvements were being very jealously looked at by its nearer neighbours - who for these purposes I think are most relevant, because it shows how difficult it was to catch up even when so geographically close.
Yes, fair enough. I admit I was dragging you rather off-topic here onto other territory I find interesting - why it is that Britain can be so advanced in the 1710s in so many things and yet still behind, say, Indian hand spinners as late as, what the 1770s? It seems somewhat of an anomaly, though it isn't the only one (e.g. Chinese porcelain). But I suppose that is a subject for another day.