Technological Innovation and Industrial Decline: The Case of the Automatic Loom in the British Cotton Industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT Designing an automatic loom that replenishes weft mechanically without operative intervention challenged the ingenuity of engineers and technologists from the middle of the 19th century until about 1970, when further development ceased in favour of shuttleless alternatives. Although well established in the United States for manufacturing basic cotton fabrics by 1914, and sufficiently well advanced for producing a wide range of fabrics by 1930, the diffusion of the automatic loom in the British cotton industry was sluggish until the 1950s. The reasons are best understood by examining the operational prerequisites, provision of which in Britain was confounded by longstanding rigidities in accounting policy and industrial relations at the level of the firm, and in strategic management at the level of the industry. At the heart of this was the longevity of the traditional non-automatic Lancashire loom, both in design and operation. The article is a counterpoise to the orthodox economic analyses that tend to be dismissive of technological constructs.