The first chapter of this Part examines the nature and implications of the ‘proto-industrial’ phase of development of the Yorkshire wool textile industry. It is argued that the proto-industrialisation thesis can be misleading because it oversimplifies the way in which rural industry emerged (in its many forms) and the mechanism of its transition to centralised production. From study of the West Riding it appears that contrasting structures of organisation of domestic production can only be understood by placing them squarely in the agrarian context and by viewing their development in relationship to a long history of the differential decline of manorialism and the enclosure and consolidation of landholdings. The mechanism of transition to factory production is similarly more complex and varied than the proto-industry theorists suggest – related to commercial and technological imperatives as well as to the wider environment of ‘primary accumulation’.

Because the nature and structure of landholding emerges as such an important contextual feature of the ‘proto-industrial phase’, the second chapter of this Part looks more closely at the financial relationship between landowning and industrial development before 1850. The contribution of landowners to the finance of industry, both direct participation and loans, is considered.