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Title:
Growth of British Industrial Estates, 1900-1939

Subject Categories:
Economic history - History
Urban history - History
Industrial/commercial location - Industry and management

Depositor(s):
Scott, P., University of Reading. Department of Management

Principal Investigator(s):
Scott, P., University of Reading. Department of Management

Abstract:
During the last two decades research on industrial districts, flexible specialisation, and high-tech regions has highlighted the importance of the local business environment to successful industrial development. Nineteenth century Britain developed a series of specialised industrial districts, providing pools of skilled labour, highly developed ancillary trades and services, networks of cooperative subcontracting relationships, and (in some cases) rented factory accommodation including power and utilities. However, the 'new' industries of the 'second industrial revolution', tended to locate outside such districts, in new 'green field' industrial areas. These often involved a new, more formally constituted, form of industrial agglomeration - the industrial or 'trading' estate. Closely associated with the rise of electric power and the internal combustion engine, and highly concentrated in the South East, industrial estates rapidly expanded to accommodate plants employing around 285,000 people by 1939, including some of Britain's best known companies such as Ford, HMV, Hoover, Lever Brothers, Mars, and Metropolitan Vickers. Despite considerable contemporary interest in their development, there has been little academic analysis of the general growth of pre-1939 industrial estates. This may be due, at least in part, to the paucity of quantitative and other evidence regarding their early development.

The main aims and objectives of the research project from which this dataset arose were:
(1) To asses the contribution of industrial estates to the growth and location of new manufacturing enterprises in interwar Britain;
(2) To examine the ways in which location of interwar industrial estates boosted firm growth;
(3) To explore the contribution of industrial estates to fostering locational externalities for the firms which located on them;
(4) To examine the regional impact of industrial estate development.



Main Topics:
This dataset provides estimates of the number of industrial estates established in Britain, their locations, the companies or other institutions that developed them, and the number of employees working in them at several 'benchmark' dates. Evidence is drawn from contemporary published and unpublished studies, company, government, and local archives and other sources.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Coverage:
Time Period Covered: 1900-1939
Dates of Fieldwork: Digital files created between 1994-2001
Country: Great Britain
Spatial Units: no information recorded
Observation Units: Institutions/organisations
Kind of Data: Textual data; Alpha/numeric data

Universe Sampled:
Location of Units of Observation:National
Population:Industrial Estates in Great Britain, 1900-1939

Methodology:
Time Dimensions: Repeated cross-sectional study
Covering the years, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1927, 1932 and 1939
Sampling Procedures: No sampling (total universe)
Number of Units: 65
Method of Data Collection: Compilation or synthesis of existing material
Weighting: not applicable
Data Sources: See study documentation

Language(s) of Written Materials:
Study Description: English
Study Documentation: English

Access:
Access Conditions: The depositor has specified that registration is required and standard conditions of use apply. The depositor may be informed about usage. See terms and conditions for further information.
Availability: History Data Service, UK Data Archive
Contact: Help desk: hds@essex.ac.uk

Date of Release:
First Edition: 10 August 2005

Copyright:
Copyright: Scott, P. University of Reading.

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