Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live. (Antiques).(Brief Article)

John Milton, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 1643

The eighteenth century in England was above all a period of rapid economic expansion that stretched the social fabric. Luxury and refinement seemed within the reach of even the relatively humble, and indeed prosperity was widespread. Contemporaries were struck with the apparently inexhaustible demand for superior manufactured goods, and it was one of the main aims of the government to ensure that consumers were supplied by English sources.

Strenuous efforts were made to restrict the flow of foreign textiles even when they came by way of the East India Company. Pattern books drew heavily on Parisian sources, but the fabrics were overwhelmingly the product of English hands. The mass production of the Staffordshire pottery industry supplied the household needs of lower- and middle-class England for generations.

Access to tropical raw materials was important to satisfy sophisticated tastes, and in 1721 the government of George I abolished the heavy import duties imposed on nearly all timber, including mahogany, from the British colonies in North America and the West Indies. The purpose was to increase the supply of timber for shipbuilding, but cabinetmakers took advantage of the lower prices as well, stimulating the trade in mahogany, which gradually replaced walnut as the fashionable ...