Borrowing brilliance: Technology transfer across sectors in the early industrial revolution

Abstract

An exploration of the way in which ideas and practices were transferred across sectors by human agencies between 1750 and 1829; set within the framework of a model of innovation in which early adopters are included in the category of 'innovators' on the grounds that they faced similar problems to those faced by the originators of technologies. Following a discussion of the increase in patents from the mid-eighteenth century, the paper considers applications of the science of measurement, and applications of generic technologies in coal fuel, furnaces, rollers, stamping and pressing and image transfer technologies. It concludes by seeking to address the questions why? And why then?