The Modern Sector: The Metal, Chemical and Finishing Trades in Manchester

A major theme of this work has been to examine the economic linkages between the factory and warehouse in Manchester’s business system, but apart from this central link there are important connections between the factory and other sectors of the Manchester economy. The obvious sectors that spring to mind are the metal engineering trades, the chemical industry and the finishing processes of bleaching, dyeing and printing. For want of a better term, we will call them the modern sector, 1 with the clear implication that these trades provide an ideal base for exploring the economic spin-off of the cotton factory. The technological determinants of growth, in the factory spinning sector, had important repercussions on the modern sector, and as Rostow points out, ‘The effects of a sector [cotton] touched by new technology transcend the sector itself’. 2 Of course, there is nothing novel in suggesting a close relationship between cotton and the modern sector, but this does not mean that the form of relationship has been identified or the structural pattern of these trades clearly explored. The interconnections with the factory and the pattern of change in the modern sector will be examined in detail during the crucial years 1815 to 1825. Furthermore, the emergence of a specialist machine making sector opened up a new area of political debate within the cotton trade concerning the exportation of machinery and the emigration of artisans.