Quality and the Roots of Manufacturing “Expertise” in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

The subject of this essay is product quality and the roots of manufacturing “expertise” in eighteenth-century Britain. During this century the British state’s manufacturing knowledge came primarily from the experience of the Board of Excise. This was characterized by a combination of technical training and tacit knowledge gained from years of hands-on practice. During the last third of the century the role of the state in regulating manufacturing was beginning to come apart, and with it the place of the Excise as the arbiter of product quality. It was within this transitory environment that the Excise increasingly required intrusive and technical means of gauging the revenue. This finally culminated in 1842 with the establishment of the first state laboratory to analyze the remaining excised goods—a mere handful, but lucrative. It was also approximately by this time that a recognizably “modern” notion of an expert in manufacturing had arrived. This was also driven by producers turning to their own advisers, frequently men of science, to challenge the state’s technical claims.

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