Originally published in 1981, this book, unlike conventional textbooks concerning the Industrial Revolution, stresses the continuity of the labour experience in the 18th Century. Examining the organisation and structure of mining and manufacture in England, the author identifies the main kinds of workers: artisans, miners, journeymen and home-based outworkers. The book goes on to illustrate how the pattern of recrimination and counter-recrimination was a condition of the employer-worker relationship in traditional industries and argues that the values of these workers were the main determinants of the attitudes, expectations, responses and actions that took place in English manufacturing. Covering such important, but frequently neglected, areas of 18th Century industry as health, apprenticeship and industrial crime, this study concludes by questioning whether a distinctive industrial culture existed during the period and how far a class consciousness can be regarded as having emerged.
1.Introduction: The Extent and Nature of Manufacturing and Mining in Eighteenth Century England 2. Uncertainty, Irregularity, Hours and Wages 3. Work and Health 4. Apprenticeship 5. Exploitation and Embezzlement 6. Trade Unionism and Industrial Disputes: The Nature and Extent of Trade Unionism 7. The Methods and Effectiveness of Industrial Action 8. Custom, Culture and Consciousness.
Biography
John Rule
Original review of The Experience of Labour in Eighteenth-Century Industry:
‘This book is one of the most important contributions to labour history…because of Rule’s approach to understanding how work, culture and protest were intimately connected throughout the eighteenth century.’ Joe Stanley, Society for the Study of Labour History.
