At the beginning of the twentieth century Britain stood proud among the maritime nations of the world, with the biggest merchant fleet and the biggest shipbuilding industry. As the century reaches its end, Britain is reduced to a merchant fleet that stands at number thirty-eight in the world listings. The nation that built mighty battleships and great and beautiful ocean liners, has now all but abandoned attempts to compete for new orders. In the early days shipbuilding was more craft than industry, but with the steam age all that changed. Industrial methods were brought in, but old attitudes were more difficult to alter. The old crafts and guilds were replaced by competing unions, and the miseries of the demarcation dispute were the result. The genius and drive of men like Brunel and Armstrong, constantly seeking change, gave way to complacency. British was best and British, it was believed, would always be best. But investment was low, change sluggish and gradually, almost by stealth, the rest of the world began to catch up and then overtake. The achievements of the nineteenth century had been immense, which make the collapse all the more tragic. This book looks at the cataclysmic fall of a famous industry and traces its origins right back to the days of glory before steam and iron took over from sail and timber.

The Rise & Fall of British Shipbuilding

Business & Money

BURTON, Anthony

Economics

Constable & Robinson Ltd.

From the Cornish coast where Wilkie Collins walked, to the Western Islands of Scotland visited by Samuel Johnson, author Anthony Burton has followed in the footsteps of eight earlier travelers in Britain, casting a fresh eye on the places they once so vividly described. In so doing, he has created a travel book of special charm and interest which presents something more than just a view of Britain today: it is a book where past and present unite. Floating down the Thames between Oxford and London in the wake of a seventeenth-century waterman, braving the snow-covered Pennine hills with Daniel Defoe, visiting the distilleries of the Scottish Highlands in search of true malt whisky with Alfred Barnard, and exploring the heart of Wales with George Borrow, Burton relives their journeys, discovering changes and similarities in people and places, and finding his own perceptions of familiar scenes altering in the light of what they saw. In the author's own words, "Each journey described in this book has been a journey of love -- a homage, if you like, to those who have given a uniquely vivid portrait of Britain at one particular time in the past." Lavishly illustrated with the author's photographs, contemporary illustrations and maps of the travelers' routes, Britain Revisited also includes many delightful excerpts from the writings of William Cobbett, Celia Fiennes, John Taylor and the other travelers.

Britain Revisited: One Man's Journeys in the Steps of the Travellers

Travel

Oxford University Press

Green Bag Travellers: Britain's First Tourists (152P)

Transatlantic Arts

Josiah Wedgwood: A biography

A. Deutsch

The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as the Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861-65), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by overproduction in a time of contracting world markets. It co-incided with the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War, and speculators buying up new stock, for storage in the shipping warehouses at the ports of entry. [1] The boom years of 1859 and 1860 had produced more woven cotton than could be sold and a cutback in production was needed. The situation was exacerbated by an overabundance of raw cotton held in the warehouses and dockyards of the ports and the market was flooded with finished goods, causing the price to collapse, while at the same time the demand for raw cotton fell. The price for raw cotton increased by several hundred percent due to blockade and lack of imports. The inaccessibility of raw cotton and the difficult trading conditions caused a change in the social circumstances of the Lancashire regions's extensive cotton mill workforce. Factories owners no longer bought large quantities of raw cotton to process and large parts of the Lancashire and the surrounding areas' workers became unemployed, and went from being the most prosperous workers in Britain to the most impoverished.

The rise & fall of King Cotton

Science & Math

Technology

Andre Deutsch Ltd.

Wilderness Britain

Profiles of eighteen great British cities, including history, maps, and cultural notes. The cities included are: Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Hull, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Dundee, Cardiff and Swansea.

Cityscapes: A Tour Around the Great British Cities

Europe

Illustrated with striking photographs and useful maps, Cityscapes offers an original view of eighteen traditional British cities.

The master idol (A Troubadour)

Literature & Fiction

Macdonald and Jane's

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