After a brief respite during the 1940s the secular decline of the British cotton industry resumed its course. This article seeks, by the application of an accounting procedure, to estimate the relative contributions of falling exports, rising imports, dwindling home demand, and increasing labour...

Using Lancashire textile industry company case studies and financial records, mainly from the period just before the First World War, the processes of growth and decline are re-examined. These are considered by reference to the nature of Lancashire entrepreneurship and the impact on...

This paper examines the relationship between the government and the cotton industry in Britain during the 1940s. It argues that governmental attempts to change the structure of the industry and stimulate investment failed because Lancashire had no confidence in its ability to face low wage...