Financial constraints on economic growth: profits, capital accumulation and the development of the Lancashire cotton-spinning industry, 1885–1914

Abstract

Recent debates concerning the development of Lancashire cotton textiles to 1914 are addressed with reference to evidence from individual companies and a subsection of the industry. The industry is found to be relatively profitable and the investment decisions of entrepreneurs to be sensible in relation to profit indicators. Significantly, capital accumulation increasingly became a matter of individual priority rather than corporate strategy and the industry failed to concentrate in line with emerging overseas competition. The ultimate failure of the industry lay in its inability to adopt corporate structures capable of sustaining future growth and development.