Stationary steam power in the United Kingdom, 1800–70: An empirical reassessment

Bottomley, Sean 2024. Stationary steam power in the United Kingdom, 1800–70: An empirical reassessment. The Economic History Review 10.1111/ehr.13375

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Abstract

The conventional view that the industrial revolution was premised on the unprecedented supply of mechanical power delivered via steam engines has been undermined by econometric work, purporting to show that their adoption outside the cotton and mining sectors was extremely limited until at least 1870. This was largely because water and wind power remained viable and cost‐competitive substitutes long into the nineteenth century. Using evidence from a newly compiled ‘census’ of stationary power installations in Suffolk, this paper demonstrates instead that the adoption of steam power was far greater than previously thought, especially in manufacturing. Moreover, the assumption that steam could be invariably substituted with environmental forces is untenable. Depending on circumstances, even very modest power requirements could only be met with steam. Although the quantitative picture remains incomplete, steam power was likely an indispensable sustentative factor for industrialization.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	0013-0117
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 August 2024
Last Modified:	02 Oct 2024 16:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171089

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