As a history major in college a half century ago, I attended a lecture by J. H. Plumb, a prominent British historian of that era. Short, bald-headed, and trim, Plumb contended in a lucid and entertaining manner that urban manufacturing culture in Britain began in the 17th Century when popular literature and schoolbooks began to promote the virtues of thrift, good habits, and diligence in the workplace. Plumb also discussed the economic evidence for the importance of manufacturing and the trade in goods. I am pleased to see Plumb’s thesis vindicated.
Prof. Plumb’s ( :)! ) thesis is quite correct, but noted by observers even in the 18th century. The wool industry was one of the first to arise in the British Isles, followed closely by the first trade restrictions. This harmed Northern Irish wool producers, who responded by importing French Huguenots who brought flax cultivation and developed the new Irish linen industry, farmed out to women throughout the area on a piecework basis. The vagaries of markets and Parliaments of course quickly brought about the first industrial economic downturns, leading to the first of several waves of emigrations from N. Ireland to the American colonies. Thus the Scots-Irish in America.