Les budgets des tisseurs de soie lyonnais au Parlement britannique, ou les dynamiques de la production des savoirs d’État (1832)

In March 1832, the House of Commons of the British Parliament set up a Parliamentary Commission to investigate the British and international silk market. The creation of this commission triggered an extensive investigation of this market, which led the Lyon silk weavers, the famous canuts, to produce workers’ budgets for the British parliamentarians. Based on this case, this article examines the methods of production and circulation of statistics intended for parliamentary activity in early nineteenth-century Britain. It seeks to shed light on the dynamics and processes behind the presence of marginalised knowledge within this important body of British political power. To understand these dynamics, the article first presents the various actors behind this inquiry and their diverse motivations. It then describes the specific methods of Commissioner John Bowring, who was appointed to investigate the Lyon silk industry, specific methods that partly explain his interest in workers’ knowledge. Finally, it analyses the workers’ budgets produced by two silk weavers, Joachim Falconnet and Pierre Charnier, at the request of Bowring, but whose form is based on a statistical tradition among silk weavers that dates back to at least the 1770s.