The study is based in part on research conducted for her Ph.D. thesis, “Uneven Regional Development in Interwar Britain” (Yale University, 1982). Financial assistance for research in Britain from the Concilium on International and Area Studies and the Department of Economics, both of Yale University, is gratefully acknowledged. Permission to cite the Nufileld Trust Papers was granted by Deloitte Haskins & Sells. The author would like to thank Michael Bernstein, Leslie Hannah, John J. Oxley, William Parker, two anonymous referees, and the participants in the Harvard Workshop in Economic History and the Workshop on Domestic and International Economic Restructuring, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

¹ For the best contemporary expositions of this position, see Dennison, S. R., The Location of Industry and the Depressed Areas (London, 1939);Google ScholarPolitical and Economic Planning, Report on the Location of Industry (London, 1939); and Great Britain, Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population,Google ScholarReport, Cmd. 6153 (London, 1940).Google ScholarFor a more recent discussion of these issues, see Lee, C. H., Regional Economic Growth in the United Kingdom since the 1880s (London, 1971), especially pp. 204–05.Google Scholar

² This argument, however, is criticized by Leslie Hannah, who points out that the Grid had at best an indirect effect in making industry more footloose. Electric power in factories in the South and Midlands was more likely to be generated by coal imported to the region than to be transferred through the National Grid, and electricity for industry remained more expensive in the South than near the coalfields. Improvements in power-station design did result, however, in less coal being required per unit of power used, which allowed industry greater locational freedom. See Hannah, Leslie, Electricity before Nationalisation: A Study of the Development of the Electricity Supply Industry in Britain to 1948 (Baltimore, 1979), p. 211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ See Massey, Doreen B., “In What Sense a Regional Problem?” Regional Studies, 13, no. 2 (1979), 233–43, and “Industrial Location in Context: A Proposal” (revised version of paper presented at the Institute of British Geographers Study Group on “Industrial Activity and Area Development,” May 1980). I have found Massey's work particularly helpful for this study.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Firn, J. R., “External Control and Regional Development: The Case of Scotland,” Environment and Planning A, 7 (06 1975), 403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Ibid., p. 397. See also Cross, Michael, New Firm Formation and Regional Development (Westmead, England, 1981), p. 50.Google Scholar

⁶ Cross, New Firm Formation, pp. 51–52. See also Northern Region Strategy Team, Strategic Plan for the Northern Region, vol. 2: Economic Development Policies (London, 1977), especially pp. 42–43, 51;Google ScholarTomkins, C. and Lovering, J., Location, Size, Ownership and Control Tables for Welsh Industry (Cardiff, 1973).Google Scholar

⁷ Great Britain, Department of Industry, Industrial Movement in the United Kingdom, 1966–75, by Pounce, R. J. (London, 1981), p. 30. “Peripheral areas” refers here to Northern Ireland and the Development Areas eligible for government assistance (northern and western industrial areas, plus Devon and Cornwall). The proportion of all interregional movement drawn to these areas was lower in 1972–1975 than it had been in the 1960s.Google Scholar

⁸ Délégation à I'aménagement du territoire et à l'action régionale (DATAR), Investissements étrangers et aménagement du territoire, livre blanc (Paris, 1974), pp. 13, 33, 52, 97–99.Google Scholar

⁹ Luttrell, W. F., Factory Location and Industrial Movement: A Study of Recent Experience in Great Britain, 2 vols. (London, 1962), 1: 179–83.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Massey, “In What Sense a Regional Problem?” pp. 237–38.Google Scholar

¹¹ Great Britain, House of Commons, Expenditure Committee (Trade and Industry SubCommittee), Session 1973–1974, Regional Development Incentives, Minutes of Evidence (from July 1973), Appendices and Index, House of Commons Paper 85–1 (London, 1973), p.591.Google Scholar See also Luttrell, , Factory Location, 1: 47–51. The types of labor being sought were not necessarily the same as those displaced in the (predominantly male) declining industries. In many cases female and juvenile labor, often new entrants to the labor force, were being employed. They tended to be paid lower wages and were less likely to organize.Google ScholarSee Luttrell, , Factory Location, 1: 357, 360, 362, 364–66;Google ScholarGreat Britain, Board of Trade, The Movement of Manufacturing Industry in the United Kingdom, 1945–65, by Howard, R. S. (London, 1968), pp. 23, 33–34; Cross, New Firm Formation, p. 159; Firn, “External Control,” p. 411; Massey, “In What Sense a Regional Problem?” pp. 237–38; Doreen B. Massey, “Industrial Restructuring as Class Restructuring: Some Examples of the Implications of Industrial Change for Class Structure” (paper presented at the International Congress of Arts and Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 1980); and North Tyneside Community Development Project,Google ScholarNorth Shields: Women's Work (North Shields, England, 1978). The motor car industry is an important exception.Google Scholar

¹² On the importance of linkages for small to medium-sized firms, see Florence, P. Sargant,Investment, Location and Size of Plant: A Realistic Inquiry into the Structure of British and American Industries (Cambridge, 1948).Google ScholarSee also Stigler, George J., “The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market,” Journal of Political Economy, 59 (06 1951), especially pp.192–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁴ Luttrell, Factory Location, 1:342.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Armstrong, Alan and Silberston, Aubrey, “Size of Plant, Size of Enterprise and Concentration in British Manufacturing Industry 1935–58,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, ser. A (General) 128 (Part 3, 1965), 416, for 1935 and 1958 figures;Google ScholarGreat Britain, Business Statistics Office, Historical Record of the Census of Production 1907 to 1970 (London, 1978), pp. 390–91, for 1958–1970 figures. As Luttrell points out, the opening of new branches is not necessarily limited to enterprises of this size.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Leak, H. and Maizels, A., “The Structure of British Industry,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, n.s. 108 (Parts 1–2, 1945), 152–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁹ Prais, S. J., The Evolution of Giant Firms in Britain (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 64–65.Google Scholar

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²³ Assistance could include share or loan capital; contributions from the Commissioners for the Special Areas towards rent, rates, or income taxes; or provision of factories. Capital was provided by the three special finance organizations. The Nuffield Trust was established by a gift of £2 million from Lord Nuffield (William Morris, of Moms Motors). The Special Areas Reconstruction Association, Ltd. was set up under the auspices of the Bank of England with a nominal capital of £1 million subscribed by the City, trust and finance companies, insurance companies, and large industrial undertakings, and with partial loan guarantees and administrative costs provided by the government. It lent primarily to small firms, in amounts under £10,000. The Treasury Fund was a £2 million government fund set up partly in response to criticism of the Special Areas Reconstruction Association. These organizations confined their activities to the Special Areas in West Cumberland, Durham and Tyneside, South Wales, and Scotland (mining, shipbuilding, and heavy industrial areas). The boundaries of the Special Areas excluded major cities in the regions (for example, Glasgow and Cardifi), with the exception of Newcastle.Google Scholar

²⁴ The Board of Trade's 1938 Survey of Industrial Development included a table (pp. 5–6) indicating that there was a total of only 173 new factory openings and extensions in the Special Areas during 1932–1938. As noted above, these data only include businesses employing 25 or more persons. Many of the assisted firms were, at least initially, smaller, which would help to account for the number of assisted firms, during a shorter period of time, exceeding the total new factory openings and extensions. Also, not all the assisted firms were opening new factories or extending.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Table V-9, pp. 419–20, in Heim, , “Uneven Regional Development in Interwar Britain” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1982).Google ScholarA similar point is made by Roberts, R.O. in “Special Financial Facilities for Industry in the Depressed Areas with Particular Reference to the Experience of South Wales,” The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 21 (01 1953), 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ Dunning, John H., American Investment in British Manufacturing Industry (London, 1958), p.86.Google Scholar

²⁷ This evidence is consistent with Luttrell's suggestion that interwar branches tended to be of a different type than postwar branches, since the primary impetus to movement was space for expansion rather than labor. See Luttrell, Factory Location, 1: 41.Google Scholar

²⁸ Nuffield Trust Papers, Nuffield Library, Oxford [henceforth, N.T.], Minute Books, Meeting of 2 May 1938.Google Scholar

²⁹ N.T., Minute Books, Meeting of 5 April 1937 (Welsh Metal Industries);Google ScholarBarker, Theodore C., The Glassmakers: Pilkingron, The Rise of an International Company, 1826–1976 (London, 1977), pp. 369–70; andGoogle ScholarN.T., Minute Books, Meetings of 19 Feb. 1937 and 26 Feb. 1937 (Pilkington); N.T., Minute Books, Meeting of 27 July 1949 (Hancocks Shipbuilding Co. [Pembroke] and Treforest Chemical Co.).Google Scholar

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³² Howells, Dudley V., “Report on the Canning Industry in Scotland” in Light Industries in Scotland, ed. Scottish, Economic Committee ([Glasgow], 1938), p. 121.Google ScholarThe importance of distribution organizations and their relationship to the development of large-scale firms has been stressed by Chandler, Alfred D. in The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1977).Google Scholar

³³ Howells, “Report on the Canning Industry”, pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid. p. 120.

³⁵ Reader, W. J., Metal Box: A History (London, 1976), pp.72, 79.Google Scholar

³⁶ Hannah, The Rise of the Corporate Economy, p. 175.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid., pp. 175, 159–61.

³⁸ Ibid., p. 159.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 146.

⁴⁰ Hay, John M., “Report on the Manufacture of Heating, Ventilating and Refrigerating Apparatus in Scotland”, in Light Industries in Scotland, ed. Scottish Economic Committee, pp.82–83.Google Scholar

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⁴³ Council of the City and County of Newcastle upon Tyne, Proceedings of the City and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne for 1937–1938 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1938), Council Meeting of 20 04 1938, p. 668.Google Scholar

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⁴⁵ See Chandler, The Visible Hand. American and German firms that had gotten an early start in establishing such organizations, and their subsidiaries in Britain, dominated the British market in several of the “new” industries and presented a stiff challenge to potential British producers by the 1930s. See the discussion of the cash register and sewing machine cases below.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Smith, Douglas H., The Industries of Greater London (London, 1933), p. 105.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ N.T., Mr B. Seebowm Rowntree, Miscellaneous Correspondence, 13 Jan. 1937 to 30 Aug. 1946, Hyde to Rowntree, 26 Jan. 1937.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Ibid., [unsigned, but probably Rowntree] to Hyde, 27 Jan. 1937. See also the case of Compact Chemicals (manufacturers of a proprietary boot polish) in N.T., Minute Books, Meetings of 5 Dec. 1938, 9 Jan. 1939, and 27 May 1940.

⁵⁰ N.T., Minute Books, Meeting of 8 Nov. 1937.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid., Meetings of 22 Nov. 1937 and 29 Nov. 1937.

⁵² Ibid., Meetings of 29 Nov 1937 and 19 Jan. 1938. A similar case was British Sewing Machines, which the Trust did fund. The Trustees were not satisfied with the company's arrangements for sales and service, although it did take onto its board a director of the Electrolux Co., a Swedish firm, to benefit from that firm's experience. See N.T., Box 17, British Sewing Machines Ltd., 29 Jan. 1937 to 2 Sept. 1941, Extracts from Nuffield Trust Minutes, Meetings of 29 Jan. 1937 and 14 March 1938, and Roney to Hutchinson, 28 Oct. 1939; and N.T., Minute Books, Meeting of 27 July 1949.

⁵³ Hannah, The Rise of the Corporate Economy, p. 155.Google ScholarSee also Lucas, A. F., Industrial Reconstruction and the Control of Competition: The British Experiments (London, 1937).Google Scholar

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⁶⁵ P.R.O. T187/2, S.A.L.A.C., Record of Meeting on 11 May 1939. See also N.T., Minute Books, meetings of 11 Aug. 1041 and 19 Nov. 1941.Google Scholar

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