volution of a 'factory system' have often been considered defining characteristics of the industrial revolution. But what did a 'factory' in the early nineteenth century actually consist of?

In 1835, Andrew Ure provided a technological definition--that of a plant concentrated around a centralised motive power source. Later, historians defined a factory as being based upon centralised and hierarchical management rather than technology. This would account for the early success of 'dispersed factories', where people worked at home for an employer based elsewhere. A compromise would be to say that the factory system pre-dated the use of powered machinery, but it was the latter that gave the factory its advantage as an organisation.

	Spinning Jenny
	Designed by James Hargreaves, a Lancashire weaver, and patented in 1770, this cotton spinning machine was an innovation because it worked eight bobbins at once. This meant that it was capable of spinning eight threads of cotton yarn, instead of the traditional spinning wheel's one. Hargreaves later doubled the number of bobbins to sixteen, but the Jenny was eventually superceded by Samuel Crompton's spinning mule in 1779.

What we can see here is that the phrase 'factory system' hides considerable variation in what constituted a 'factory'. Size and structure varied enormously across the cotton manufacturing sector. For example, the tiny 'factory' at Cheadle Hulme, established in 1777, contained two carding engines and six spinning jennies, while the huge mill built by Robert Owen at New Lanark in 1816 employed 1700 workers. At the end of the eighteenth century there were 900 cotton spinning mills in Britain. One-third were quite large, using the mechanised equipment pioneered by Richard Arkwright, but 600 were much smaller, and used much older hand-powered equipment.

Even where large factory buildings were constructed, the sheer cost of actually equipping them meant that space was often rented to smaller firms, who were expected to provide their own production machinery. The 'room and power' phenomenon, as it became known, encouraged small companies to prosper as it relieved them of the complicated and costly business of building and running their own premises. In Oldham, a third of all firms shared common power sources as late as 1841.

What this would suggest is that many industrial concerns, although highly mechanised, were physically of small size. What were the implications for the stationary steam engine?