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The course of Great Britain's industrial evolution in the hundred years after 1760 was not determined solely by a score of giants. There were thousands of men, important in their day, who directed the processes of change. Yet they escaped the attention of Victorian enquirers, who held up the select band of pioneering millionaires as shining examples that late nineteenth century industrialists might emulate. But the cumulative effect of their ambitions, enterprise and innovations was of key significance in launching Great Britain into its first phase of industrialism. For a study of a family that have hitherto failed to secure a single mention in any of the books, and yet whose impact and example were notable in one of the main centers of activity, the Rhodes in Leeds provide a good illustration. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the master-dyer had been to a large extent independent of the cloth merchant. Gradually however, the merchant, in seeking greater quality control and closer supervision in the finishing processes, began his first tentative steps towards combining the several stages of manufacture.

With the exception of London, the late Victorian additions to British towns were limited in their area and extent and then represented only by a modest advance on former housing conditions. Throughout this period much building took the form of the filling in of vacant areas near to the city center. Terrace dwellings arranged in a rectilinear pattern in certain peripheral districts near to streetcar services, did, however, provide improved homes for a restricted number of middle-class people. In contrast, the detached or semidetached house set in its own lot was the dominant type of suburban residential building at this time in the United States.

Examines the influence of pre-existing patterns of ownership related to cadasters on urban areas in Leeds, England. Importance of the purchase of land holdings for building purposes in the complex process of the physical growth of towns; Creation of settlement pattern by urban development; Differences in the antecedent pattern of ownership.