DOI Artikel:
Collins, Edward John T.: The diffusion of the threshing machine in Britain, 1790-1880
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48999#0018
THE DIFFUSION OF
THE THRESHING MACHINE
IN BRITAIN, 1790-1880
E. J. T. Collins
Research into the history of farm mechaniza-
tion in Britain, as most elsewhere, has been
characterised by over-concern with patents and
inventions and with machine design and per-
formance. Conversely little is yet known, still
less understood, about the process of on-farm
innovation, about why machines spread, and
about the many and complex factors, social
and economic, as well as technical, which
governed the pace and quality of technological
change.
Next to the steam plough the threshing
machine was the most costly and apart from
the seed drill the most technically sophisticated
item of nineteenth century farm equipment.
To some historians it signalled the first great
step forward in the industrialization of agri-
culture, which by substituting machines for
men and capital for labour made for higher
productivity and a more efficient use of fac-
tors of production. To others, it constituted a
prime social evil, an instrument of the new
agrarian capitalism which created unemploy-
ment, exacerbated social divisions within the
countryside and incited civil unrest. (Ham-
monds, Kerr chap. 5, Peacock). In view of its
significance both historiographically and within
the spectrum of nineteenth century farm tech-
nology it is the more surprising, therefore, that
apart from Hobsbawm and Rude there as yet
exists no detailed study of the spread and dif-
fusion of machine-threshing (Hobsbawm &
Rude). Such is the onus of this paper whose
primary concerns will be to identify the main
factors of change and to devise a simple econo-
mic model within which to accommodate them.
The first practical threshing-machines, pow-
ered by horse and water, were pioneered in
Scotland in the 1780s. A century later ‘all but a
small fractional proportion’ of com produced
in Britain was machine-threshed with steam the
most important single power source. Although
weakness of evidence precludes a precise plot-
ting of the chronological and spatial advance
of the threshing machine over the intervening
period, four reasonably discrete phases of in-
novating activity can be delineated: 1790-1815,
1816-1835, 1836-50, and 1851-80.
Phase I: 1790-1815
During this, the initial phase of the threshing
revolution, innovation was centred mainly on
northern England and southern Scotland, whe-
re by 1815 stationary horse- and water-powered
threshing mills were a standard feature on most
large grain-growing farms.1 As early as 1793-
94 the Carse of Gowrie could boast 61 ma-
chines, and in 1800, the county of Fife, a
machine in almost every parish. By the end of
the Napoleonic Wars they were general through-
out the Scottish Lowlands, while steam-power
had already been introduced into the Lothians.
By this stage too, mills on the ‘Scottish prin-
ciple’ (i. e. stationary machines equipped with
THE THRESHING MACHINE
IN BRITAIN, 1790-1880
E. J. T. Collins
Research into the history of farm mechaniza-
tion in Britain, as most elsewhere, has been
characterised by over-concern with patents and
inventions and with machine design and per-
formance. Conversely little is yet known, still
less understood, about the process of on-farm
innovation, about why machines spread, and
about the many and complex factors, social
and economic, as well as technical, which
governed the pace and quality of technological
change.
Next to the steam plough the threshing
machine was the most costly and apart from
the seed drill the most technically sophisticated
item of nineteenth century farm equipment.
To some historians it signalled the first great
step forward in the industrialization of agri-
culture, which by substituting machines for
men and capital for labour made for higher
productivity and a more efficient use of fac-
tors of production. To others, it constituted a
prime social evil, an instrument of the new
agrarian capitalism which created unemploy-
ment, exacerbated social divisions within the
countryside and incited civil unrest. (Ham-
monds, Kerr chap. 5, Peacock). In view of its
significance both historiographically and within
the spectrum of nineteenth century farm tech-
nology it is the more surprising, therefore, that
apart from Hobsbawm and Rude there as yet
exists no detailed study of the spread and dif-
fusion of machine-threshing (Hobsbawm &
Rude). Such is the onus of this paper whose
primary concerns will be to identify the main
factors of change and to devise a simple econo-
mic model within which to accommodate them.
The first practical threshing-machines, pow-
ered by horse and water, were pioneered in
Scotland in the 1780s. A century later ‘all but a
small fractional proportion’ of com produced
in Britain was machine-threshed with steam the
most important single power source. Although
weakness of evidence precludes a precise plot-
ting of the chronological and spatial advance
of the threshing machine over the intervening
period, four reasonably discrete phases of in-
novating activity can be delineated: 1790-1815,
1816-1835, 1836-50, and 1851-80.
Phase I: 1790-1815
During this, the initial phase of the threshing
revolution, innovation was centred mainly on
northern England and southern Scotland, whe-
re by 1815 stationary horse- and water-powered
threshing mills were a standard feature on most
large grain-growing farms.1 As early as 1793-
94 the Carse of Gowrie could boast 61 ma-
chines, and in 1800, the county of Fife, a
machine in almost every parish. By the end of
the Napoleonic Wars they were general through-
out the Scottish Lowlands, while steam-power
had already been introduced into the Lothians.
By this stage too, mills on the ‘Scottish prin-
ciple’ (i. e. stationary machines equipped with