Abstract
The article addresses the role of scientific culture in the first Industrial Revolution and is based upon research undertaken in Britain, France and The Low Countries. It summarizes an argument that lays emphasis upon the knowledge base available to early industrial entrepreneurs and engineers, a base that married concepts and applications in ways that were close to what we now call engineering. It was the science practised in the day, basic to the Newtonian tradition from Desaguliers to Dalton. The argument draws on published as well as manuscript sources from Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The author disputes the “semi-literate tinkerer” model of early industrial activity in power technology and endorses arguments now being made by economic historians such as Joel Mokyr who have also relied upon earlier published work by this author.