Demand Conditions

Greenwood and Batley sold machine tools to 653 customers during the forty-five years between 1856 and 1900. In addition, a number of tools were sold through agents, so that the ultimate destination of the tool is not discoverable. These 653 customers ranged geographically from Leeds to Japan, and industrially from the Chinese Imperial Mint to the Ordnance Store of the Tower of London. Since machine tools are producer's goods, bought to manufacture some other metal product, the total demand for machine tools made by Greenwood and Batley was composed of the various demands from disparate industries; these in their turn were created by the demands for metal goods which these industries were facing. To examine the demand for machine tools from Greenwood and Batley it is necessary, therefore, to examine the conditions in the various major markets in which the machine tools were sold.

The most obvious distinction that can be made between customers of Greenwood and Batley is that between customers in the British Isles and customers overseas. Greenwood and Batley were extremely successful in selling their machine tools in export markets. Their first such sale was in April 1857, when Lancelot Kirkup and Co., of St Petersburg, placed an order for a surfacing and polishing lathe worth £155. Thereafter machine tools were exported by the firm in every year except 1865.