Industrial espionage in the 1700 & 1800's shapes the world.

Sarah Rose is the author of For All the Tea in China, which tells the true story of how tea and industrial espionage fueled the great expansion of the British Empire and the East India Company in the 1800s. The book focuses on one central character, Robert Fortune, who was a scientist sent by the British government to literally steal the secret of tea production from China, plant the Chinese tea in Darjeeling, and thus make the British Empire less reliant on trade with the Chinese and more self-sufficient by harvesting its own tea in colonial India. (more)

Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer: Britain and France in the Eighteenth Century by J.R. Harris

Britain and Europe were the leading industrial nations in 18th-century Europe. This text examines the rivalry which existed between the two nations and the methods used by France to obtain the skilled manpower and technology which had given Britain the edge, particularly in the new coal-based technologies. Despite the British Act of 1719 which outlawed industrial espionage and technology transfer, France continued to bring key industrial workers from Britain and to acquire British machinery and production methods. Drawing on archival material, John Harris investigates the nature and application of British laws and the attitudes of some major British industrialists to these issues. He also discusses the extent to which French espionage had any real success.

Lieven Bauwens (June 14, 1769, Ghent – March 17, 1822, Paris) was a Belgian entrepreneur industrial spy and who was sent to Great Britain at a young age and brought a spinning mule and skilled workers to the European continent. (more)

Smuggling or abduction were not the style of the pious Thomas Whitty of Axminster, although he was not averse to a spot of industrial espionage. Enthused by an entrepreneur's desire to produce faster, wider and cheaper, he visited London in 1755 and took lodgings at the Golden Lion in Fulham. There, he made the acquaintance of a weaver from the factory of Parisot and inveigled a tour of the premises. The knowledge he gleaned enabled him to start making similar carpet in Devon. Increasing competition wiped out Parisot. (more)

Francis Cabot Lowell saw an opportunity in cotton. On the advice of his doctor, in 1810 he took a trip to England to recuperate from his stress. Over the next two years, Lowell visited textile mills in booming Lancashire County and in Scotland, where he saw machines for weaving cloth that were technologically superior to those in America. The British knew this too; they'd made it illegal to let proprietary loom technology out of the country. Undeterred, Lowell memorized the design of the textile machines, and when he returned to New England in 1812, he began work on recreating them in Waltham, Mass. (more) Thanks to a combination of immigrant British technicians, patent infringements, industrial espionage, and local innovations, American power looms were on a par with the English machines by the end of the 1810s. (more)

Derby Industrial Museum, also known as The Silk Mill brothers, beside the, is a museum of industry and history in Derby, England. Between 1717 and 1721 George Sorocold built Britain’s first mill for the LombeRiver Derwent. This mill was built to house machines for "doubling" or twisting silk into thread. John Lombe copied the design for the machines used for spinning large quantities of silk, during a period spent in Italy, working within the Italian Silk Industry. This was possibly the first example of industrial espionage. (more)

Samuel Slater left England after serving as an apprentice at a “state-of-the-art” cotton mill. In the United States, Slater found eager buyers for the technology he had regarding the most modern techniques in use in England for wool and cotton production. With the information Slater brought, America became the world’s leading manufacturer of cotton which shifted wool and cotton production from Europe to the Americas, thus kick starting America’s Industrial Revolution. This single act of industrial espionage elevated this new country to international economic eminence in less than 50 years. (more)

According to presumptions the Chinese manufactured porcelain, which was filmy, yet outstandingly hard, as early as in the 7th century. Porcelain reached Europe only by the end of the 13th century and rapidly spread in the centuries to come without anyone knowing the secret of its production. It decorated the tables of sovereigns and noblemen, since they were the only ones who could afford it. The Chinese tried to mystify the secret even more by legends and myths. Since they enjoyed a monopoly in manufacturing porcelain, the price of china was very high for a very long time. The mystery of porcelain manufacturing was uncovered in Europe only in the 18th century. The secret reached Paris with the assistance of a Catholic priest, d'Entrecolles, who had served as a Jesuit missionary in China. The priest paid a visit to the centre of the royal porcelain manufacture (Kin Te-chen) where he carefully observed everything, then passed on his information to Europe in the form of letters. He gave minute accounts of his visit to the "secret city". He described the location of the city, the life of the potter families living there, and the security measures introduced, in detail. He carefully observed the process of porcelain production. In spite of the distrust of the Chinese authorities and the stringent security measures the priest managed to send a sample of china clay, (also called porcelain clay, or kaolin) one of the main basic raw materials of porcelain to Europe. (more)

Do not make the mistake of thinking industrial espionage is of little consequence. Call me, or the counterespionage specialist who sponsors Kevin's Security Scrapbook.