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Neil Cummins

Cormac O'Grada

December 8th, 2022

Research Abstract – Artisanal skills, watchmaking, and the Industrial Revolution: Prescot and beyond

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Neil Cummins

Cormac O'Grada

December 8th, 2022

Research Abstract – Artisanal skills, watchmaking, and the Industrial Revolution: Prescot and beyond

0 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The role of skills—whether artisanal, arithmetical, scientific, or being able to read and write and count—in British industrialization is an enduring source of debate.

Apart from its considerable intrinsic interest, the history of watchmaking in England is important for the light it can shed on the link between what was in the beginning essentially a cottage industry based on an artisanal workforce and the human capital required for the Industrial Revolution. In a recent study Morgan Kelly and Cormac Ó Gráda linked the achievement of one small but important eighteenth-century English industry, watchmaking, to a skilled labour force raising productivity through increasing specialisation and learning-by-doing.

In this paper Professor Neil Cummins and co-author Cormac Ó Gráda focus on those artisan watchmakers in more detail, reviewing how they acquired their skills, the role of literacy, the link between skills in watchmaking and in other sectors, and the eventual demise of artisanal skills in watchmaking.

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Read the full article here: Cummins, Neil and Cormac Ó Gráda (2022) Artisanal skills, watchmaking, and the Industrial Revolution: Prescot and beyond’. Northern History. ISSN 0078-172X

About the author

Dr Neil Cummins, Associate Professor in Economic History, LSE

Neil Cummins

Neil Cummins is Associate Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics. His research themes are life, love and death. His methods combine economic logic and historical sources with big data analytics.

Cormac O'Grada

Cormac O'Grada

Cormac O'Grada is an Professor Emeritus of Economics at University College Dublin. His research has focused on the economic history of Ireland, Irish demographic changes, the Great Irish Famine (as well as other famines), and the history of the Jews in Ireland

Posted In: Industrialisation | Knowledge and Ideas