Abstract
If one attempted to formulate the common belief concerning the origin and development of modern technical industries, it would probably be found that stress would be laid upon financial ability or manufacturing skill on the part of the founders; but if, instead, we were to make a historical survey of the subject, I think that we should find that the starting and development of most manufacturing businesses depended upon discoveries and inventions being made by some individual or group of individuals who developed their original discoveries into an industrial process. Indeed, if the localities in which various industries have developed be marked on the map, they will often be found to have far more relation to the accidental location, by birth or otherwise, of individuals than to any natural advantages possessed by the situation for the particular industry concerned. The metallurgical industries, of course, are situated chiefly near the sources of the ores or of coal, but why should the chief seat of the spinning industry be in Lancashire or of modern optical industry in Jena, except that in those places lived the men who developed the processes which are used in the industry? And, moreover, industries are frequently transferred from one locality to another, and even from one country to another, by the development of new processes, generally by new individuals or groups of workers.
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The Organisation of Industrial Scientific Research 1 . Nature 97, 411–413 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/097411b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/097411b0