Economy
As early as 1300, the port exported wheat, peas and beans to Ireland, France and Spain, and by 1400 was also exporting cloth from Somerset and the adjoining counties. By 1500 it was the largest port in Somerset, later becoming the fifth largest in England, until eclipsed by Bristol in the 18th century. In its heyday, imports included wine, grain, fish, hemp, coal and timber. Exports included wheat, wool, cloth, cement, bricks and tiles. Unlike Bristol, Bridgwater was never involved in the slave trade and, in 1797, was the first town in Britain to petition the government to ban it.
The Bridgwater ship the Emanuel was one of three that took part in Martin Frobisher's 1577 search for the Northwest Passage. In 1828, 40 ships were registered in the port, averaging 60 tons each.
Read more about this topic: Bridgwater
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant’s economy is a coarse symbol of the soul’s economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)