Post-Glorious Revolution Economic and Institutional Reforms

Key Insight

After the Glorious Revolution, Parliament became firmly in control of state policy, leading to fundamental changes in economic institutions. Property rights, previously eroded by the Stuarts, were strengthened. Parliament shifted taxation from the 'hearth tax' (abolished in 1689), which heavily burdened manufacturers, to land taxes. This pro-manufacturing policy, including legislation to expand the market for woolen textiles and reorganize archaic land property rights, aligned with the interests of many parliamentarians who were invested in nascent manufacturing enterprises.

Despite limited suffrage (less than 2 percent of the male population could vote in the 18th century, and key industrial cities lacked representation), pluralism flourished through widespread petitioning. Anyone could petition Parliament, and it listened, demonstrating the empowerment of broad segments of society beyond the voting elite. This was crucial in dismantling extractive monopolies; for instance, the Royal African Company's monopoly on the slave trade, once protected by James II, was abolished in 1698 after 135 petitions from interlopers, many from provinces and colonies, amassed 8000 signatures against the company's 2500.

Parliament also shaped trade policy, implementing the Calico Acts (1701, 1721) to protect domestic textile production by banning Asian silks and calicoes, thereby reducing foreign competition for English woolens. However, the subsequent Manchester Act of 1736 demonstrated the limits of such protectionism, allowing the burgeoning domestic fustian (linen-cotton) industry to thrive against wool interests, illustrating the balance achieved through pluralistic institutions. Furthermore, the creation of the Bank of England in 1694 spearheaded a 'financial revolution,' expanding credit and making loans widely available, with two-thirds of the largest borrowers from banks like C. Hoare's & Co. being merchants and businessmen, not privileged aristocrats.