Download the full version of the ebook at ebookname.

com

The New Competitive Advantage The Renewal of

American Industry 1st Edition Michael H. Best

https://ebookname.com/product/the-new-competitive-advantage-
the-renewal-of-american-industry-1st-edition-michael-h-best/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookname.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

The Advantage of Competitive Federalism for Securities

Robert Romano

https://ebookname.com/product/the-advantage-of-competitive-federalism-
for-securities-robert-romano/

ebookname.com

Business Process Outsourcing The Competitive Advantage 1st

Edition Rick L. Click

https://ebookname.com/product/business-process-outsourcing-the-
competitive-advantage-1st-edition-rick-l-click/

ebookname.com

The Leadership Gap Building Leadership Capacity for

Competitive Advantage 1st Edition David S. Weiss

https://ebookname.com/product/the-leadership-gap-building-leadership-
capacity-for-competitive-advantage-1st-edition-david-s-weiss/

ebookname.com

Family Life Education Principles and Practices for

Effective Outreach Second Edition Stephen (Steve) F.
Duncan
https://ebookname.com/product/family-life-education-principles-and-
practices-for-effective-outreach-second-edition-stephen-steve-f-
duncan/
ebookname.com
The Leadership Code Using Life s Lessons to Inspire Others
1. Auflage Edition Gregory

https://ebookname.com/product/the-leadership-code-using-life-s-
lessons-to-inspire-others-1-auflage-edition-gregory/

ebookname.com

Gendered Talk at Work Constructing Gender Identity Through

Workplace Discourse 1st Edition Janet Holmes

https://ebookname.com/product/gendered-talk-at-work-constructing-
gender-identity-through-workplace-discourse-1st-edition-janet-holmes/

ebookname.com

Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 7th Edition Peter Davey

https://ebookname.com/product/antimicrobial-chemotherapy-7th-edition-
peter-davey/

ebookname.com

Formulas and Calculations for Drilling Operations 2nd

Edition James G. Speight

https://ebookname.com/product/formulas-and-calculations-for-drilling-
operations-2nd-edition-james-g-speight/

ebookname.com

Data driven design and construction 25 strategies for

capturing analyzing and applying building data 1st Edition
Deutsch
https://ebookname.com/product/data-driven-design-and-
construction-25-strategies-for-capturing-analyzing-and-applying-
building-data-1st-edition-deutsch/
ebookname.com
Boilerplate The Fine Print Vanishing Rights and the Rule
of Law Margaret Jane Radin

https://ebookname.com/product/boilerplate-the-fine-print-vanishing-
rights-and-the-rule-of-law-margaret-jane-radin/

ebookname.com
The New Competitive Advantage

The Renewal of American Industry

Michael H. Best
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi
São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States by
Oxford University Press Inc., New York
© Michael Best, 2001
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2001
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographcs rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction
outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Best, Michael H.
The new competitive advantage: the renewal of
American industry/Michael H. Best.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Competition—United States. 2. Industrial management—United
States.
3. Comparative organization. I. Title.
[HD41 .B382 2001] 338.6′048′0973–dc21 2001021559
ISBN 0–19–829744–0
ISBN 0–19–829745–9 (pbk.)
 Acknowledgements
Conversations about technological change are ‘in the air’ at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Chancellor William
Hogan and Vice- Chancellor Frederick Sperounis have led the way in advancing a model of how a technology-oriented
university can play a leadership role in regional development. I am fortunate. Few economists have such opportunities
for ongoing discussions with engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs on links between innovation, technology,
production, and the creation and diffusion of knowledge. These discussions form the background for the concern
with regional economic growth at the heart of this book. But even in this congenial institutional environment, the
influence of one individual stands out.
I have gained enormously over the years from conversations and shared endeavors with Professor Sukant Tripathy.
Sukant was a gifted advanced materials scientist. I worked with Sukant on a wide range of issues. These included
diversification of the jute industry of East Bengal; the search for ‘clean energy’ solutions that address simultaneously
the challenges of the technological divide between rich and poor regions and global warming; the pursuit of analogies
between self-assembly processes amongst molecules in laser impacted nanostructures and networked business
enterprises; and the role of ‘systems integration’ as a source of competitive advantage in Silicon Valley and Boston's
Route 128. Tragically, Sukant died in a swimming accident just after this manuscript was completed. The void is
permanent in the lives of the many that he touched.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Vienna is the other institution with which I have worked
closely over many years. Frederic Richard, Cristian Gillen, and Giovanna Ceglie, in particular, have been allies in
searching for new understandings of local
iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

capability development, technology management, and approaches to technology assistance.

Involvement in industrial competitiveness projects over nearly two decades has resulted in intellectual partnerships that
have shaped the emerging methodology and content of the ‘capabilities and innovation’ perspective developed in this
book. These include Robin Murray in North London and Cyprus; Tea Petrin and Ales Vahčič in Slovenia; Cristian
Gillen and Robert Forrant in Jamaica and Honduras; Vlado Kreačič and David Ellerman in Moldova; Rajah Rasiah in
Malaysia; Aidan Gough in Northern Ireland; and Robert Forrant and William Lazonick in Massachusetts. The
methodology involves a constant back and forth between guiding concepts and primary research as change strategies
and programs are designed, debated, and implemented. This has involved, as well, the study of hundreds of business
enterprises, and numerous educational institutions, research centers, and industrial policy agencies in different parts of
the world. The debts to individuals who have shared their time, experiences, and expertise in interviews can only be
acknowledged collectively.
Many have participated directly in the preparation of this manuscript. Jane Humphries has commented on and listened
to many of the ideas. Aidan Gough, too, of the Northern Ireland Economic Council has left a major imprint on the
conceptual contours. Christos Pitelis suggested the title. John Bradley, Steve Landau, Eric Martin, Sir George Quigley,
Arthur Francis, Alan McGarvey, Merritt Roe Smith, Gianni Lorenzoni, Ben Fine, Steven Sass, and Stan Engerman
have offered helpful suggestions. David Musson gave wise advice on the introduction and first chapter. Urska Cvek
and Marjan Trutschl provided technical assistance. Urska and Richard Sherburne helped with the graphics and
Gregory DeLaurier, Ann Newton, Sarah Dobson, and Lynn Childress with editing. Fred Sperounis provided
intellectual and institutional support.
Elizabeth Garnsey and Brian Loasby helped shape my ideas on Edith Penrose and the idea of the entrepreneurial firm.
I benefited from discussions with Mark Harvey on Polanyi's concept of instituted processes. I have drawn from Bruce
Tull's unpublished work on the ‘precision corridor’ of the Connecticut River Valley. I have gained from projects with
colleagues in the University of Massachusetts Lowell community including Robert Forrant, Krishna Vedula, Steve
McCarthy, Robert Wagner, Ken Gieser, Larry Gross, Chris Tilly, Phil Moss, Aldo Crugnola, Nick Schott, Sammy
Shina, Fran Eagle, William Mass, and Michael Fiddy. William Lazonick and Mary O'Sullivan's dining room has
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v

been the site of countless conversations with friends from all corners of the globe in the ‘Chandlerian school’ of
organizational capabilities. The Judge Institute of Management Studies, Cambridge University proved to be a
stimulating environment to try out many of the themes while I was the Arthur Andersen Visiting Fellow in 1999.
I have learned from a group of students who have written dissertations under my direction on topics related to
‘industrial districts’ in different contexts. These include Rich Parkin, Bruce Tull, Marcela Miozza, Roman Habtu, José
Tavara, Curtis Haynes, Maribel Aponte, Ron Caplan, and Alison Dean. Other former students who have influenced
my thinking include David Lubin, Tony Guglielmi, Frank Johnson, Al Ruthazer, Frank Stathas, Peter Ungaro, and Jack
Plaistek.
Finally, my son Lawrence has generously consented to interruptions in my soccer-training program to work on my
book. But perhaps my potential as a goalie has not suffered greatly.
It goes without saying that responsibility for errors and omissions rests with the author alone.
M.H.B.
Cambridge, Massachusetts and Oxford
January 2001
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
List of Boxes x
Preface xi
1. Introduction 1
Growth Anomalies 1
Competing Perspectives 2
Porter's Cluster 7
The Productivity Triad 9
Chapter Outline 15
2. Production Systems 20
The Idea of Technology Management 20
The American System and Interchangeability 25
Henry Ford and Single-Product Flow 28
Toyota and Multi-Product Flow 36
Canon and New Product Development 40
Intel and Systems Integration 46
Conclusion: Production Capabilities and Industrial
Structure 54
Appendix 2.1.Throughput Efficiency and Waste 58
3. Cluster Dynamics 60
The Principle of Increasing Specialization 61
Open System Dynamics 69
Conclusion 85
4. Innovation Capabilities and Skill Formation 90
Business Models and Innovation Capabilities 91
viii CONTENTS

Technology Manpower Development 105

Conclusion 114
5. The Resurgence of Route 128: The Triumph of Open Systems 117
The Argument in Brief 117
Industrial History 119
Regional Technology Capabilities 131
Skill Formation 149
Conclusion 158
6. Cluster Dynamics in Malaysian Electronics 163
Challenge: Growth with Low Value Added 163
Industrial Policy 164
The Singapore/Johor Region 166
Penang 171
Summary 187
7. The Case of Northern Ireland 191
Business Model 192
Production Capabilities 204
Skill Formation 209
Conclusion: The Lack of Growth Engines 214
8. Policy Implications 216
The Productivity Triad and Growth Anomalies 216
Capability Development Processes 219
Conclusion 241
9. The Sustainable Growth Challenge 243
Beyond the Growth or Environment Tradeoff 243
Design for Sustainability 244
Technology Design 245
Manufacturing Design for Energy Efficiency 250
Conclusion: Sustainability and the Red Queen Effect 254
Glossary 257
References 264
Index 279
 List of Figures

1.1. Productivity Triad 10

2.1. Evolution of industrial structure 57
3.1. Model of cluster dynamics 70
4.1. Laboratory-push innovation: US big business 95
4.2. Incremental innovation: Japan PS 4 98
4.3. Systems integration innovation: US PS 5 100
4.4. Regional growth and skill formation dynamics 107
4.5. Plastics industrial food chain 112
5.1. Competing business models 124
5.2. The law of diminishing sizes 133
5.3. Genealogy of two regional production systems 135
5.4. Electrical engineering graduates in Massachusetts 155
6.1. Design capabilities and skills integration 177
6.2. International comparison of science and engineer graduates 188
7.1. Multi-disciplinary R&D group 197
9.1. Biodegradable Polymer Research Center 247
 List of Tables

2.1. Production system models 24

4.1. Engineering and science graduates 1975 and 1995 108
5.1. Techno-diversification of Massachusetts manufacturers 126

List of Boxes

2.1. New product development process 41

2.2. Production capabilities spectrum 55
5.1. Jet engine technology fields map 142
8.1. Productivity Triad growth processes 219
 Preface
What a difference a decade makes. In the early 1990s many books were being published on the loss of competitiveness
of American industry. My book, The New Competition, published in 1990, described the loss of American industrial
leadership in terms of the rise of both the Japanese model of business organization and networked groups of small
firms represented by the ‘third Italy’.1 The former challenged American high- volume manufacturing industries such as
cars and semiconductors and the latter were eroding market share in design-led ‘fashion’ industries such as apparel,
shoes, and furniture. Both business models and associated production systems were able to achieve performance
standards in cost, quality, flexibility, and/or design that could not be matched by American Big Business, which was
organized according to different principles of production and organization. These models were the New Competition
of the 1970s and 1980s that eroded the competitiveness of the American economy.
The State of Massachusetts was particularly hard hit. Between 1986 and 1992, employment in manufacturing dropped
by one-third, from 675,000 to 450,000. The Massachusetts Miracle, the term used to describe the economic good
times linked to the establishment of America's first high-tech district, was over. Companies like Digital Equipment
Corporation, Wang Laboratories, Prime Computer, Data General, and Apollo laid off thousands of workers at a time.
The new, high-tech industries such as the minicomputer were but recent examples of a long tradition in the region of
declining industries—textiles, shoes, shipbuilding, furniture, and watchmaking. But the pace of the decline this time
was much more rapid.

1
Refers to the north central region of Italy that enjoys high per capita income but few large firms. The region retains competitive advantage in design-led and fashion
industries.
xii PREFACE

Unexpectedly, however, Japanese industry lost its way in the 1990s and by the middle of the decade the productivity of
American industry was growing at rates not witnessed for over two decades. Massachusetts, too, was undergoing an
economic resurgence. While books and articles were still being written on the decline of Route 128,2 occupancy rates in
industrial office space were shooting back up as fast as they had declined. By the end of the decade, Massachusetts had
the second highest per capita income in the United States. This time around, however, there have been few new
Fortune 500 firms and the economic resurgence has been accompanied by little fanfare.
What happened? Why did the American economy regain industrial leadership across a range of industries? Why did
regions like New England avoid long-term economic decline with the waning of ‘mature’ industries as experienced by,
for example, the North of England? What explains the resurgence?
This book addresses these and related matters. My overall goal in writing the book is to present an analysis of regional
growth dynamics in which technology is integral. The approach here has much in common with the emphasis on
technological change in the ‘neo- Schumpeterian’ perspective and the cluster analysis of Michael Porter. But it does not
fit easily in either. I have labeled it the ‘capabilities and innovation perspective’.
Alternative economic perspectives are receiving increased attention because of the failure of the neoclassical theory of
growth to offer insights into industrial change in rich and poor nations. Likewise, the ‘new growth theory’ offers a
framework for examining the ‘knowledge’ economy but, like its neoclassical rival, it operates at too high a level of
aggregation to control for business models and production capabilities including technology management. The
business enterprise in both old and new growth theories is thus highly abstract and deterministic. The internal
organization of the firm in neoclassical growth theory is determined by external parameters, over which it has no
influence. Price and product design, for example, are imposed on firms by market forces. But without an account of
business organization, growth theories are ill equipped to address experiences like the decline and rebirth of American
industry or rapid growth in knowledge poor regions of the world. Policy, too, suffers as such economic theories
address matters of public policy but are silent on matters of business policy.

2
Route 128 is a highway that orbits Boston with a radius of approximately 10 miles which became home to an agglomeration of high-tech firms.
 PREFACE xiii

The capabilities and innovation perspective hopes to address these shortcomings. It is an economic analysis of
industrial performance in which technology management is central. But it is also an extension of an economic
development perspective that began with the publication in 1776 of Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations. Smith's masterpiece contains a treatment of production and technological change as well as a
theory of price and resource allocation. The neoclassical branch of economics is only an extension and reworking of
the latter.3 The study of production has languished in the economics curriculum.
The capabilities and innovation perspective extends Smith's principle of increasing specialization from individual skills
to organizational capabilities as part of a dynamic process by which business enterprises individually and collectively
develop capabilities and, in the same process, strategically reconstitute markets. All business enterprises seek to
differentiate their product in the marketplace. Entrepreneurial firms, by definition, seek to develop distinctive
capabilities by fostering an interactive dynamic between their own technological capabilities and market opportunities.
For such firms, the ongoing process of production is simultaneously a process of capability development.
Entrepreneurial firms produce things and capabilities. For these firms, capabilities are both inputs and outputs of
production.
The market, too, is integral to the process of capability development. But the concept of the market is different in a
process view of capability development than in the theory of efficient resource allocation. Instead of the market being a
parameter, for the entrepreneurial firm the market is both a signaler of opportunities and an object of ongoing,
strategic reconstitution. The process of shaping capabilities is simultaneously the process of reading and responding to
market opportunities and of redefining the products that constitute the market.
An understanding of the dynamic between distinctive capability and market opportunity is critical to understanding
both business performance

3
The claim that a free market system can produce an allocation of resources that satisfies independent optimality rules is a powerful idea. It connects the ‘invisible hand’ to a
body of theory. A market system is self-regulating and, in theory, it can produce an optimal allocation of resources. But the elegance of the idea does require the assumption
that all resources are commodities. The allocation generated by a price system will be one in which the prices received for resources allocated in any single endeavor will
exceed or equal their value used anywhere else. The equation of price with marginal cost is generated automatically by price adjustments dictated by the laws of supply and
demand. The theory assumes that inputs are both homogeneous and commodities. If a key resource is not a resource but a capability, claims about prices adjusting to
generate levels of output that also represent allocative efficiency must be qualified.
xiv PREFACE

and regional processes of growth and decline. Regions that enjoy a high per capita income are generally regions with a
critical mass of business enterprises with the capacity to add value to the resources they use. The idea of regional
specialization implies that firms do not compete alone in the global marketplace but as members of networked groups
of firms sharing and building on distinctive regional capabilities. A region's capacity to initiate and sustain high value
added production depends upon its capability to foster and reproduce entrepreneurial firms.
The point is that sustainable regional growth depends not upon the longevity of specific firms but upon a networked
population of interacting, specialist business enterprises. Greater specialization within a region shifts the patterns of
inter-firm relationships which rebound back on the specialization process within firms. Understanding these
relationships is crucial to distinguishing dynamic from static clusters. The term ‘cluster dynamics’ signals interactive
processes of capability development and specialization within and amongst firms within a region. I argue that a
dynamic between internal organization and inter- firm relations underlies different models of innovation and patterns
of regional competitive advantage.
‘Competitive advantage’ in the title of the book evokes the role of capabilities in establishing inter-regional and
international leadership in performance characteristics by a region or nation's business enterprises. The title also
evokes the approach of anchoring capabilities in principles of production and organization. Business enterprises
operate within a regional production system which is constituted by principles of production and organization. The
‘new’ in New Competitive Advantage refers to innovative advances in capabilities that enable a region's business
enterprises to set previously unattainable performance standards based on more advanced principles of production
and organization. In The New Competition (Best 1990), the principles of interchangeability and flow were examined in
different institutional contexts to explain changes in both regional and national industrial leadership. In this book, the
principle of systems integration is added to explain the New Competition of the 1990s in the form of the resurgence of
American industry. Silicon Valley and Boston's Route 128 are case studies.
Systems integration is a principle of both production and organization, and a method of analysis. As a principle of
production and organization it goes some distance in explaining the new model of technology management that has
emerged in America's high-tech regions.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tales from
Westminster Abbey Told to Children
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Tales from Westminster Abbey Told to Children

Author: Mrs. Frewen Lord

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

Release date: July 2, 2021 [eBook #65748]

Language: English

Credits: Benjamin Fluehr and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by The Internet
Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FROM

WESTMINSTER ABBEY TOLD TO CHILDREN ***
 WEST FRONT OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
After a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic and
Photographic Co., Ltd.
 TALES
FROM

WESTMINSTER ABBEY
TOLD TO CHILDREN BY

MRS. FREWEN LORD.

WITH VIGNETTE PORTRAIT OF DEAN STANLEY, PLAN OF THE ABBEY AND

GENERAL VIEW OF WEST FRONT OF ABBEY.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY
LIMITED,

St. Dunstan’s House,

Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C.
1894.
[All rights reserved.]
 LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 DEAN STANLEY.
From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic
Company.
 DEDICATED
to the memory of

DEAN STANLEY,
whose walks and talks with children
in Westminster Abbey
can never be effaced from the
grateful recollection of one who as a child
had the happiness of enjoying them.
 TALES
FROM

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
 CHAPTER I.
A great many years ago, when I was quite a small child, I was taken
with some other children over Westminster Abbey by Dean Stanley,
who was then the Dean of Westminster.
Some of you may have read a book called “Tom Brown’s School
Days,” and if so you will remember Tom’s great friend, Arthur, who
began his school life a lonely and home-sick little boy, but who as
the years went on came to be looked up to and liked almost more
than any other boy at Rugby. “George Arthur” this boy is called in
the book, but his real name was Arthur Stanley, and when he grew
up he became a clergyman, and was for many years Dean of
Westminster. He wrote a great many books, and one all about
Westminster Abbey; for he knew every corner and part of this great
church, and was full of stories about the great people who are
buried here, and the kings and queens who were crowned here.
There was nothing he liked better than taking people over the
Abbey, and any one who had the happiness of going with him, as I
did, and of hearing him, would always remember some, at any rate,
of the stories he told.
He died in 1881, and as none of you can ever see or hear him,
standing in the Abbey surrounded by children, and telling them all
that he thought would interest them, I am going to take out of my
memory, and out of this book of his,[1] just as much of what he used
to say as I hope will help you to enjoy what you will see there.
When one goes to visit any place for the first time, there is always a
great deal that one wants to have explained; and what I myself
most enjoy is to read or be told beforehand something about what I
am going to see, and then I understand it much better—I do not
waste so much time in asking questions, and have all the more time
to look about.
If we go and stand at the great West Door, as it is called, of
Westminster Abbey, and look down Victoria Street, it is difficult to
believe that this very same place was, hundreds of years ago, quite
wild country. Where there are now houses and streets and churches,
there used to be only marshy land and forests. Where there are now
endless streams of carriages, carts, and omnibuses, and people
hurrying along, there were in the far-off time, when the Abbey
Church of Westminster was first begun, only wild oxen or huge red
deer with towering antlers which strayed from the neighbouring hills
and roamed about in this jungle. It used to be called “the terrible
place,” so wild and so lonely was it.
Dotted about in the marsh were many little islands, one of which
was called Thorney Isle, because there were so many wild thorn
trees growing there, and on this spot Westminster Abbey now
stands.
For as the forests in this part of London were gradually cut down,
this island looked so pretty and quiet with the water flowing all
round it, and nothing to be seen from it but sunny green meadows,
that King Edward the Confessor chose it as the place to build a great
church, which he called the Church of St. Peter. At that time there
were not many large churches in England, and the Church of St.
Peter was thought to be one of the most splendid that was ever
seen. It took fifteen years to build, but at last it was finished, and on
Christmas Day, 1065, King Edward the Confessor, wearing his crown,
as was the custom in those days on great occasions, came with all
his bishops and nobles to the first great service in the Abbey Church
which he himself had built. He was then a very old man, and a few
days after the great service he was taken ill and died, and was
buried in his own church. He is called the Founder of the Abbey, and
you will see, when you go round it, the shrine of King Edward and of
his queen, who was afterwards buried at his side.
Now, there is only one more thing to be remembered before we
begin to look round inside and decide what are the most interesting
things to see, and that is that this Abbey we are in to-day is not the
actual Church of St. Peter which King Edward the Confessor built. Of
that church there is now left only a little bit of one pillar, which
perhaps a guide will show you, within the altar-rail, in what is called
the “Sacrarium.” I do not mean that the church was pulled down all
at once, and this Abbey built instead, but bit by bit, as years went
on, it was added to and altered. New parts were built on by different
kings—for Westminster Abbey is a church that has been all built by
kings and princes—and as the new parts were added, the old were
gradually pulled down.
Of all the kings who helped to build and beautify the Abbey, Henry
III. was the one who did most, and he spent on it such enormous
sums of money that he is often spoken of as one of the most
extravagant kings England ever had. He made up his mind that the
Abbey of Westminster was to be the most beautiful church in the
world, and he used to invite the best foreign artists and sculptors to
come and help to make plans and paintings and carvings for it. He it
was who built the shrine where Edward the Confessor is now buried,
in the part of the choir behind where the communion table (formerly
the high altar) now stands. It was when he was growing to be an
old man that he thought the founder of the Abbey ought to be
treated with special honour and respect, and so almost the last thing
he did in his life was to build this shrine, which stands in what is
called Edward the Confessor’s Chapel.
The king sent all the way to Rome—and in those days the journey
was a very much longer and more difficult one than it is now—for
the mosaics and enamels which are still to be seen on the shrine;
the workmen who made it came from Rome, where the best
workmen were then to be found; and the twisted columns round the
shrine were made in imitation of the columns on some of the tombs
in the great churches in Rome.[2]
When it was finished, in 1269, the old king himself, his brother
Richard, and his two sons, Edward and Edmund, carried the coffin of
Edward the Confessor on their shoulders from the place where it had
been buried in 1065 to the new chapel, and there it has rested to
this very day.
Years afterwards a great and magnificent chapel was added by
Henry VII. at the east end of the Abbey, which was called after him.
He was buried there when he died, and so were his grandson,
Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, and Mary Queen of Scots, and
many others whose tombs you must look at by-and-by.
It was in the year 1509 that Henry VII. was buried in Westminster
Abbey, just four hundred and forty-four years after the burial of King
Edward the Confessor. But in these four hundred and forty-four
years the Abbey had been so much altered, the old parts so pulled
down and rebuilt, that King Edward, could he have seen it again,
would hardly have believed that this great Abbey, as we see it to-
day, had grown up from his first Church of St. Peter on Thorney Isle.
And now, as I have said enough about the building of the Abbey, we
can go inside and begin to see some of the monuments and tombs
of which it is full.
 CHAPTER II.
This chapter on the geography of the Abbey, as I call it, has nothing
to do with the stories which begin in the next chapter, and the only
reason that I have written it at all is this. In the days when I first
heard many of the stories which I am going to tell you now, they
were told to us by Dean Stanley in the Abbey. As we walked about
with him he explained to us what part of the church we were in, and
pointed out the tomb or monument of the man, or woman, or child
about whom he was telling us. But some of you may read this little
book before you have ever been to Westminster Abbey, and others
may have been there, but may not know the names of the different
parts of the church, or where any particular monument or tomb is.
So, instead of trying to explain at the beginning of every story
whereabouts we are supposed to be standing, I am putting all such
explanations in this chapter; and this will, I hope, help you to find
your way about in the Abbey for yourselves. If you only want to hear
the stories, you must miss this chapter and go on to the next one.
Just as we have maps to understand the geography of countries, so
we have maps, which are called plans, to understand the geography
of churches and houses, and the drawing you see on the opposite
page is a map or plan of the inside of Westminster Abbey. The
picture at the beginning of this book is a view of the outside.
We will now suppose we have just come into the Abbey at the great
west door, the door between the two towers (see frontispiece). The
name is marked on the plan.[3] We should then be standing in what
is called the nave, and right in front of us and through those iron
gates underneath the organ is the choir. That is where service is held
every morning and every afternoon, and where all the Westminster
School boys sit on Sundays when they come to church, for as
Westminster school has no chapel of its own, the boys have all their
services in the Abbey. Through the choir gates you can see the
communion table in front of you, and behind that, again, are all the
chapels where the kings and queens are buried. The nave and
transepts are full of the monuments and graves of great men. The
numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., on the plan mark those about which you will
find stories later on.
 PLAN OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

A. Chapel of Edward Confessor.

B. Chapel of St. Benedict.
C. Chapel of St. Edmund.
D. Chapel of St. Nicholas.
E. Henry VII. Chapel.
F. Chapel of St. Paul.
G. Chapel of St. John Baptist.
H. Chapel of St. Erasmus.
I. Chapel of Abbot Islip.
J. Chapel of St. John Evangelist.
K. Chapel of St. Michael.
L. Chapel of St. Andrew.
1. Lord Shaftesbury.
2. General Gordon.
3. Edward Mansell.
4. Edward de Carteret.
5. Sir Isaac Newton.
6. Lord Lawrence.
7. Sir James Outram.
8. David Livingstone.
9. Henry Fawcett.
10. Sir John Franklin.
11. Geoffrey Chaucer.
12. Alfred Tennyson.
13. Shakespeare.
14. Handel.
15. Lord Beaconsfield.
16. George Canning.
17. Earl Canning.
18. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.
19. Lord Chatham and William Pitt.
20. Wilberforce.
21. Henry III.
22. Queen Eleanor.
23. Edward I.
24. Edward III.
25. Richard II.
26. Henry V.
27. Henry VII. and Queen.
28. Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary Tudor.
29. Mary Queen of Scots.
30. Oliver Cromwell.
 31. Edward VI.
32. Dean Stanley.

And now, if you look at the plan, you will see exactly where
everything is. The whole Abbey is built on a piece of land which has
the shape of a cross laid upon the ground. The nave and choir
represent the stem of the cross, and the two transepts form the two
arms.
In the part of the choir beyond the communion table are the
chapels. Altogether there are eleven, and they are arranged like a
wreath round the shrine of Edward the Confessor. They are marked
on the plan by the letters A, B, C, etc., and their names you will find
on the plan, beginning with A, which is the Chapel of Edward the
Confessor.
One last thing I must explain before we begin the stories, and that is
—how this great church came to be called an Abbey, and not a
Cathedral. It is not at all difficult to remember when you have once
been told.
The Church of St. Peter did not stand, as you may have supposed,
all by itself on Thorney Isle, but was only one part of a mass of
buildings called the Monastery of St. Peter.
A monastery, as you very likely already know, was a kind of college
for monks. Here they lived under the rule of an abbot; and the
church belonging to the monastery—for every monastery had a
church, as well as a school and hospital or infirmary, belonging to it
—was called an Abbey.
In early days the life of the monks was a very busy one. They did all
the rough work, such as cooking, and cleaning pots and pans; for
although many of them had been great soldiers or great nobles, they
did not think any work done for the monastery was beneath them.
They ploughed the land and planted seeds; they cut down trees for
firewood; they nursed the sick; they fed and looked after the poor
who lived round about them; and they taught in the school, and
watched over the boys who were sent there to be educated.
Many boys—not only those who intended to become monks when
they grew up, but those also who were to go out into the world, or
become soldiers—went to the monastery schools to be taught. Here
the sons of great nobles sat to learn their lessons side by side with
the children of the poorest people, who were allowed to come and
have as good an education as the rich without paying any school
fees. The schools were open to all who wished to learn.
Of course, Scripture was the chief thing that they were taught, but
the monks did not think that alone was enough, and the boys often
learnt, besides reading and writing, grammar, poetry, astronomy, and
arithmetic. Latin many of the monks talked almost as easily as their
own language, and very often music and painting were added to all
this. In the cloisters, or covered walks belonging to the monastery,
the boys learned their lessons, always with a master near by, and
sitting one behind another, so that no signals or jokes were possible.
And very hard it must have been to keep their attention on their
work in summer time when, if they looked up, they could see
through the open archways the sun shining on the grass in the
centre of the cloisters, and inviting them to come and play there.
Something was always going on in the cloisters. Sometimes the
schoolboys were tempted to waste their time watching the monks
shaving. Once a fortnight in summer, and once in three weeks in
winter, the monks came out here with hot water and soap, and the
important business of shaving went on, while on “Saturdays the
heads and feet of the brethren were duly washed.” If while all these
things were going on the abbot appeared, every one stood up and
bowed, and the lessons and the shaving and the washing stopped
until he had passed by.
Perhaps the most important part of every monastery was the library,
and an abbot who cared much for the monastery over which he
ruled tried to collect and preserve and buy as many books as he
could. In those days printing was not invented, and so every book of
which many copies were wanted had to be written out by the
monks. And this they did in a most wonderful way, copying them, so
we are told,[4] “on parchment of extreme fineness prepared by their
own hands,” and ornamenting them with “the most delicate
miniatures and paintings.” The monks at that time loved their books
more than anything else, and there was a saying among them that a
cloister without books was like a fortress without an arsenal. Often
they took long and difficult journeys to see or to copy the books in
other monasteries. “Our books,” said a monk, “are our delight and
our wealth in time of peace, ... our food when we are hungry, and
our medicine when we are sick.”
And now, having told you a little about the life of the monks in those
far-off days, we must come back to these buildings on Thorney Isle,
which as I have said were called the Monastery of St. Peter. It is not
known when this particular monastery was first founded; but it is
said that St. Dunstan, who lived in the reign of King Edwy, found
there some half-ruined buildings. He repaired them, and then
brought twelve monks to live in company with him. But probably the
Danes, who were often invading England at that time, destroyed this
little monastery, for when Edward the Confessor came to the throne,
many years afterwards, it had almost, if not quite, disappeared; and
when he rebuilt it he added this great church of St. Peter, about
which I told you in the first chapter.
There is a pretty story told of how this came about. An old monk
was one day lying asleep, and in his sleep he was commanded by St.
Peter, who appeared visibly to him, to acquaint the king that it was
his pleasure he should restore the monastery. “There is,” said the
apostle, “a place of mine in the west part of London which I choose
and love. The name of the place is Thorney.... There let the king by
my command make a dwelling of monks, stately build and amply
endow; it shall be no less than the House of God, and the Gates of
Heaven.” When he woke up, the old monk went to the king and told
him his vision. Upon hearing it Edward journeyed to “the west part
of London;” there he found Thorney Isle, and there he built the
monastery and church, which he called after the apostle.
And now at last we have finished all the explanations. In the first
chapter I told you how the Abbey came to be built, and in this one I
have shown you how to find your way about it. In the next I shall
begin telling you the stories, the first being about Lord Shaftesbury,
whose monument is in the nave, where you see No. 1 on the plan.
 CHAPTER III.
Very likely you have never even heard the name of Lord
Shaftesbury; but as you will be sure to read and hear of him by-and-
by, I will tell you a little about what he did, and why a monument
was put up in his memory. He was born in 1801, and died in 1885,
and so was an old man of eighty-four when he died. He spent all his
long life in trying to make other people—especially the poorest and
most miserable he could find—more happy and more comfortable.
He was a great nobleman, and very rich, and he gave most of his
time to finding out the cause of the suffering of the poorest people
in England, and, when he had found it out, he helped to make laws
to improve things for them, and, if money was wanted, he gave that
too. But he gave away his money wisely and well; he never was
taken in by idle people and beggars who would not work for
themselves; his motto seems to have been to “help those who help
themselves,” and one name by which he was known was “The
Working Man’s Friend.” But especially may he be remembered by all
children for what he did for children. More than fifty years ago, when
first machines (spinning machines and weaving machines) were
invented in the great cotton factories in England, it was found that
children could work them just as well as men and women; and as
children would not have to be paid so much as men, the masters of
the mills began to employ them. Quite tiny children, sometimes not
more than five years old, and so small that they often had to be
lifted up on stools to reach their work, were made to toil in the mills
and factories all day, and sometimes all night too. They were treated
like little slaves. If they did not work fast enough, they were beaten
and kicked by their masters; and they spent all their days in hot
rooms, hearing nothing but the whirring of the machines, and
stopping their work only for about half an hour in the middle of the
day for their dinner, which was generally only black bread and
porridge, and sometimes a little bacon. They had no time for play,
and they had no time to rest, except on Sundays, and then they
were too tired to move from the berths (or shelves) where they
slept, for they did not even have proper beds.
Then, again, there were the children who worked in coal-mines, who
spent all their days in damp, dark mines, who never saw the sun,
and who had to draw the trucks filled with coal, or carry great
baskets full of it on their backs. And all this they began to do before
they were six years old.
When Lord Shaftesbury saw these things—for he went into the mills
and the factories, and he went down into the mines—he made up
his mind that something must be done for such children. So he
made speeches in Parliament, in which he told of the cruelty with
which thousands of English children were treated; and at last laws
were made by which it was forbidden to let such little children work
in mines and factories at all, and by which older children were given
shorter hours to work and more time for rest and fresh air. All this
and much more Lord Shaftesbury did during his long life, and when
at last he died, this monument was put up in Westminster Abbey
with these words on it, so that people who had never known him
might be always reminded of the way he spent his life:—
LORD SHAFTESBURY,
BORN 1801; DIED 1885.
ENDEARED TO HIS COUNTRYMEN BY A LONG
LIFE SPENT IN THE CAUSE OF THE
HELPLESS AND SUFFERING.
“LOVE—SERVE.”
Close to Lord Shaftesbury, there is a monument to a great soldier,
General Gordon,[5] who was killed in Egypt in 1885—the same year
that Lord Shaftesbury died. He fought in the Crimean War and in
China, and was often called “Chinese Gordon.” All the soldiers who
served under him were so fond and proud of him that they would
have done anything for him. He was very brave, and it was well
known that he would always be in the front rank to lead his men
when there was a battle, and this, more than anything else, made
him popular. He himself never was armed except with a little cane,
which his soldiers called “the wand of victory.” Once when he was
wounded his men wanted to carry him out of the battle, but he
would not allow it, and went on leading them till he fainted from
pain and weakness.
Lord Shaftesbury, the great statesman, died in England, with all his
many friends near him, and General Gordon, the great soldier, was
killed by savages while he was shut up in Khartoum, a town in
Africa, where he was besieged; but their two monuments are close
together in Westminster Abbey, and they were alike in one thing—
they both did all they could to help other people. Of course, Gordon
had not time to do so much as Lord Shaftesbury,[6] but when he was
not fighting he lived in England, and then “his house,” said a
gentleman who knew him,[7] “was school and hospital and
almshouse in turn. The poor, the sick, and the unfortunate were all
welcome. He always took a great delight in children, but especially in
boys employed on the river or the sea. Many he rescued from the
gutter, cleansed them and clothed them, and kept them for weeks in
his house. For their benefit he established reading classes. He called
them his kings, and for many of them he got berths on board ship.
One day a friend asked him why there were so many pins stuck into
the map of the world over his mantelpiece. He was told they marked
and followed the course of the boys on their voyages; that they were
moved from point to point as his youngsters advanced, and that he
prayed for them as they went night and day. The light in which he
was held by those lads was shown by inscriptions in chalk on the
fences. A favourite one was ‘God bless the Kernel,’” which was their
way of spelling “colonel,” for he was at that time Colonel Gordon.
But I must not stay to tell you more of him now, for there are many
other people I want you to hear about. “This Abbey,” Dean Stanley
used to say, “is full of the remembrances of great men and famous
women. But it is also full of the remembrances of little boys and girls
whose death shot a pang through the hearts of those who loved
them, and who wished that they should never be forgotten.”
So now, not far from the monuments to these two great men, we
come upon the tombs of two boys who are buried here: one Edward
Mansell,[8] a boy of fourteen, who died as long ago as 1681; and
another Edward, Edward de Carteret,[9] a little boy “seven yeares
and nine months old,” who “dyed the 30th day of October, 1677.” His
father and mother put nothing on his tomb to tell us about him
except that he was a “gentleman;” but that one word tells us much,
for it means, said Dean Stanley, that “they believed—and no belief
can be so welcome to any father or mother—they believed that their
little son was growing up truthful, manly, courageous, courteous,
unselfish, and religious.” And if this little boy had tried to be a
“gentleman” in this true and best sense of the word, it does not
seem out of place that he should be buried in the Abbey among
great men and famous women.
Close by little Edward de Carteret is buried Sir Isaac Newton.[10]
There is on the floor a plain grey stone with these few words in Latin
on it, “Hic depositum quod mortale fuit Isaaci Newtoni,” which
means, “Here lies what was mortal of Isaac Newton.” Sir Isaac
Newton was one of the most celebrated Englishmen who ever lived,
and made wonderful discoveries in science, especially in astronomy,
by which his name is known all over the world. He was born on
Christmas Day, 1642, and lived to be seventy-five years old. In spite
of being so learned and so famous, he was always modest about
what he knew, and believed that what he had learned and
discovered was only a very, very little bit of all there was to learn
and discover in the world and about the world. When he was quite
an old man, some one was saying to him one day how much he had
done and how wonderful his discoveries were, and he answered, “To
myself I seem to have been as a child picking up shells on the
seashore, while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before me.”
Just above the grey stone in the floor there is a large statue of Sir
Isaac Newton, sitting with his head resting on his hands as though
he were thinking, and a great pile of books by his side.
I have already told you about General Gordon. I now come to the
story of another great soldier, Sir James Outram, who is buried in
the Abbey. The graves of Sir James Outram and of David
Livingstone, a great traveller and missionary, and of Lord Lawrence,
who was the Governor-General of India, and who did a great deal
for the natives while he lived among them, are all close together,
and there is something interesting to tell you about all these three
men, especially Sir James Outram and David Livingstone.
If you have read or heard anything of the story of the Indian Mutiny,
when the native soldiers of India rebelled against the English who
governed them, and killed hundreds of men, women, and children,
you must, I think, have heard the names of Lord Lawrence and Sir
James Outram.
During the years he had lived among them, the natives of India had
grown so fond of Lord Lawrence,[11] that when the mutiny (or
rebellion) broke out, the men of the Punjaub (which was the part of
India he then governed) said they would be true to the man who
had been good to them, and so they fought for England with the few
English soldiers who were then in India, and helped us to conquer
the rebels. Lord Lawrence has been called the “Saviour of India,”
because he came to the help of his fellow-countrymen with these
Indian soldiers just when he was most terribly needed.
Later on, in the same war, came the siege of Lucknow. Lucknow was
one of the chief cities of India, but the streets were long and narrow
and dirty, and most of the houses were poor and mean. Among
them, however, were some magnificent palaces and temples. The
Residency, the house where the English governor of Lucknow lived,
was built on a hill above the river, and all round it were the offices
and the bungalows of the English who were living there. When the
mutiny broke out, it was soon seen that the native soldiers would
attack the English in Lucknow, and the people at once set to work to
make as many preparations against them as they could. To begin
with, Sir Henry Lawrence, who was in command of the soldiers both