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Economic growth and change in eighteenth-century Britain, both the expansion of pre-industrial commercial society and the industrial revolution itself, have been explored using a variety of approaches. This article highlights a relatively ignored aspect of the problem, arguing that the state, politics, and political economic ideology played a central role. In particular, the early eighteenth-century political victory of a version of political economy associated with the Whig party, which centred on manufacturing and consumption, was a prerequisite for the economic developments later in the century. The article begins by describing a political economy of manufacturing and its rival, a political economy of re-exporting associated with the Tory party. It then explains how and why a political economy of manufacturing became dominant, examining both political elites and ordinary voters and petitioners. The growth of manufacturing and consumption must be understood, therefore, as political as much as economic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of 18th-century estate acts draws upon the range of manuscript and printed materials relating to 428 estate bills to determine the nature of these measures, the backgrounds and motivations of their sponsors and their impact both upon the properties of individual promoters and on the broader economy. Estate acts enabled small proprietors, gentry and grandees (including a number of women) to free themselves from restrictions imposed by settlements and made it possible for them to sell, lease, exchange, partition, mortgage, alter earlier acts, or make other amendments to existing settlements. Many authorities have stressed the degree to which this legislation promoted economic growth, but the principal finding of this study is that, in the largest number of cases, they were utilised to alleviate indebtedness incurred primarily as a result of personal extravagance and secondarily because of overly generous provision for widows and younger children. While attesting to the positive economic contributions of landowners who tapped mineral resources and promoted urban development, the largest number of bills illuminate the costs of sustaining their self-indulgent and unproductive expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]