Seven out of ten bankrupts in the eighteenth century were involved in the textiles, food and drink and distribution sectors of the economy. Examining the patterns and causes of bankruptcy in those areas should shed some light on their wider fortunes as well as further fleshing out arguments which have been advanced about the interactions at work between risk and failure.

TEXTILES

Over the century as a whole, one in four bankrupts was involved in the production and distribution of textiles and clothes. But only a small proportion was involved in the clothing trades. If the contribution of clothes is taken out then textiles accounted for 26 per cent of all bankrupts 1701–20, 23 per cent 1741–60 and 20 per cent 1781–1800. If numbers of bankrupts there failed to grow as quickly as in other areas of the economy, it could be that this simply mirrors the declining importance of textiles within the English economy over the century. Alternatively, it may have been caused by the changing nature of bankruptcy within the various parts of the textile sector as they experienced variable rates of growth. What particularly needs to be examined is whether the rapidly expanding cotton industry suffered a different pattern of bankruptcy from the woollen industry, with its slower evolution.

In absolute terms, the number of bankrupts from the textile sector trebled between the first and last decades of the eighteenth century. Deflating this to take account of the possible impact of inflation produces a growth of 122.6 per cent, as against 185.0 per cent for non-textile bankrupts.