The Relevance of Skills to Innovation during the British Industrial Revolution, 1651-1851 WORKING PAPER (NB: the final sample will be double the size, and extended back to 1551) Anton Howes
[email protected] Brown University August 2016 What role did skills and education have in causing the rate of innovation to accelerate during the British Industrial Revolution? I present new evidence on the educational and professional backgrounds of 677 people who innovated in Britain between 1651 and 1851. Almost a third of innovators improved at least one industry or process for which they had no prior professional experience or training. And a fifth of innovators had professional experience irrelevant to all of their innovations. Yet common to almost all innovators was that they had prior contact with other innovators, suggesting the spread of an improving mentality. Where people lacked the skills to realise their envisioned improvements, they engaged in self-education. Even of the majority of innovators who improved familiar industries, it was not the skills training itself that influenced their decisions to become innovators, but that they were trained by other innovators. Skills and education often influenced what people chose to improve – people tended to stick to what they knew best – but not their decisions to become innovators. 1 Introduction In the two centuries between the end of the English Civil War in 1651 and the Great Exhibition of 1851, Britain became the world’s technological leader.1 The Great Exhibition was symbolic of the transformation from war-torn country to innovation superpower. Between May and October of 1851 over six million people, equivalent to a fifth of the country’s population, flocked to a glass hall, a Crystal Palace, purpose-built to celebrate the latest innovations.2 The transformation – an Industrial Revolution – was brought about by an unprecedented acceleration in the rate of innovation.