Welsh enterprise in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Examines aspects of local enterprise in Wales during the Industrial Revolution and seeks to place the historical experience of such within the wider debates surrounding the relationship between enterprise and economic development. Study of this period has traditionally focused attention on the discontinuity precipitated by the impact of industrialism and particularly on the development of large‐scale factory production. Within Welsh history this focus has largely obscured an examination of local developments to the process of economic development, with the result that there has been no possibility for discussion of, or participation in, gradualist accounts of such development. This study seeks to demonstrate that part of the economic development experienced during the period was generated as a result of indigenous enterprise, and therefore raises the possibility of continuity within certain areas of Welsh economic development ‐‐ prior to the influx of English enterprise and capital at the end of the eighteenth century.

Citation

Matthews, M.D. (2001), "Welsh enterprise in the eighteenth century", Management Decision, Vol. 39 No. 9, pp. 710-718. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740110408728