British Cotton Textiles: Maturity and Decline examines the relationship of the Lancashire cotton textiles industry with its suppliers of capital. It shows how capital enabled and constrained investment, and explores the strategic responses to changing international conditions at important stages of the industry's history and protracted decline in the 20th century. The chapters in this book were originally published in Business History and Accounting, Business and Financial History.

Introduction - The decline of the British cotton textile industry: A review and reinterpretation 1. Windows of Opportunity in the Textile Industry: The Business Strategies of Lancashire Entrepreneurs, 1880-1914 2. Producer co-operatives and economic efficiency: Evidence from the nineteenth-century cotton textile industry 3. Financial constraints on economic growth: profits, capital accumulation and the development of the Lancashire cotton-spinning industry, 1885-1914 4. Firm structure and financial performance: the Lancashire textile industry, c.1884-c.1960 5. Financial distress, corporate borrowing, and industrial decline: the Lancashire cotton spinning industry, 1918-38 6. Ownership, financial strategy and performance: the Lancashire cotton textile industry, 1918-1938 7. Public Subsidy and Private Divestment: The Lancashire Cotton Textile Industry, c.1950-c.1965 8. Financial Institutions and Corporate Strategy: David Alliance and the Transformation of British Textiles, c.1950-c.1990 Epilogue - Survival strategies in textiles