The Cotton Industry and the British War Effort, 1914-18

This article investigates the contribution made by the cotton industry to the British war effort between 1914 and 1918. Its main conclusion is that the government failed to make the best use of the resources available to it in Lancashire, and permitted the cotton industry to hoard labour and to squander coal and shipping capacity, to the detriment of the overall efficiency of the war economy. The long-term effect of the war, through its purported stimulation of Far Eastern competition, is a separate issue which will not be considered here, but forms part of the wider debate on Lancashire’s decline