Invention and Innovation in the British Pin Industry, 1790–1850

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Abstract
During the six decades that extended from 1790 to 1850, British pin manufacturers were often slow to adopt new technology. Unfavorable economic conditions, particulary those spawned by the Napoleonic wars, were partly responsible for the lag between the invention and utilization of new techniques, but at other times, the shortcomings of inventors as salesmen of their inventions also contributed to the slow introduction of new technology. In this article Professors Dutton and Jones illustrate that the diffusion of new technology was (and is) anything but a costless and frictionless process, and they ultimately conclude that “this arcadian world of neo-classical simplicity would seem to be far removed from historical reality.”

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