Suchergebnisse

A. W. Coats is Head of the Department of Economics and Social History of the University of Nottingham.

During the past two or three decades economic and social historians have displayed a sustained interest in the pre-conditions of the Industrial Revolution in England, and among the many explanations of this remarkable break-through into modern industrialization the role of labour (including population) has been accorded a prominent place. Yet although questions about wages, labour supply, productivity, poverty, and poor relief have been staple ingredients in the economic and social historian's diet ever since his discipline began to take shape in the late nineteenth century, there are still serious gaps in our knowledge of the size, composition, quality and living standards of the English labour force in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some of these gaps may eventually be filled, at least partially, by detailed empirical studies of local and regional demographic, economic and social conditions. But even the most sanguine researcher must admit that there will continue to be deficiencies of data and unanswerable questions, so the need for interpretative, even speculative, studies will remain. The present paper falls within this latter category, for it is mainly concerned with the relationships between ideas, policies and conditions affecting the English labouring poor in the period under examination. It combines a review of the present state of knowledge of these matters with some speculative observations about causal connections and the possibilities of future research.