page_title: Economic history of the United Kingdom
section_title: Foreign trade
hierarchical_section_title: Economic history of the United Kingdom / 19th century / Foreign trade
caption_attribution_description: English: Barges at the east of Canning Dock in the Port of Liverpool, England, 1910 or before, showing a view of the Port of Liverpool Building before the Royal Liver Building was erected behind in 1911.
context_page_description: The economic history of the United Kingdom relates the economic development in the British state from the absorption of Wales into the Kingdom of England after 1535 to the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of the early 21st century.
  Scotland, England, and Wales shared a monarch from 1601 but their economies were run separately until they were unified in the 1707 Act of Union. Ireland was incorporated in the United Kingdom economy between 1800 and 1920; from 1921 the Irish Free State became independent and set its own economic policy.
  Great Britain, and England in particular, became one of the most prosperous economic regions in Europe between 1600 and 1700, Industrialisation in the UK from the mid-eighteenth century resulted in economic developments described by many historians as the British industrial revolution. These developments resulted in Britain becoming one of the premier economies in Europe during the first half of the 19th century, the most prominent industrial power in the world economy, and a major political power. Its industrialists were major innovators in machinery such as steam engines, textile equipment, and tool-making.
context_section_description: Foreign trade tripled in volume between 1870 and 1914; most of the activity occurred with other industrialised countries.  Britain ranked as the world's largest trading nation in 1860, but by 1913 it had lost ground to both the United States and Germany: British and German exports in the latter year each totalled $2.3 billion, and those of the United States exceeded $2.4 billion. 
  Although her own exports were diminishing in comparison to her rivals, Britain remained the world's largest trading nation by a significant margin: in 1914 her import and export totals were larger by a third compared to Germany, and larger by 50 percent compared to the United States. Britain was a top importer of foodstuffs, raw materials, and finished goods, much of which were re-exported to Europe or the United States. In 1880 Britain purchased about half the world total in traded tea, coffee, and wheat, and just under half of the world's meat exports. In that same year, more than 50 percent of world shipping was British owned, while British shipyards were constructing about four fifths of the world's new vessels in the 1890s.
  Its extensive trading contacts, investments in agriculture, and merchant shipping fleet enabled it to trade in a great volume of commodities remotely - transactions were concluded with foreign clients from London or other British cities over distant commodities like coffee, tea, cotton, rubber, and sugar.
  Proportionally, even though trade volumes trebled between 1870 and 1914, the British share of the world market was actually shrinking. In 1880, 23 percent of world trade was British-owned - by 1910 it was 17 percent. As foreign trade increased, so in proportion did the amount of it going outside the Continent. In 1840, £7.7 million of its export and £9.2 million of its import trade was done outside Europe; in 1880 the figures were £38.4 million and £73 million. Europe's economic contacts with the wider world were multiplying, much as Britain's had been doing for years. In many cases, colonial control followed private investment, particularly in raw materials and agriculture. Intercontinental trade between North and South constituted a higher proportion of global trade in this era than in the late 20th century period of globalisation.
caption: Canning Dock, Liverpool c. 1910, the "Second City" of the British Empire.
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