The foreigners in the industry and jobs in the 18th century Madrid, according to Eurgenio Larruga (1747-1803)

Abstract

In the last decades of the reign of Carlos II and throughout the entire 18th Century, with the Bourbon monarchy established, Spain required extensive foreign manpower, particularly specialists in arts and crafts, which had a presence almost all over Spain and thanks to which Spanish industry flourished with numerous factories and diverse products manufactured by mechanisation – the indispensable factor for industrial progress. The great work of Eugenio Larruga, Memorias políticas y económicas (political and economic memoirs), truly reflects this facet, from which the author of this article draws but only in respect of Madrid, la villa y corte, all the data referring to foreign nationals specialising in these arts and crafts, who lived and worked in said town, as well as the opinion of Larruga himself in order to, from a legal prism, consider how foreign nationals were treated in Spain by virtue of certain legal provisions and concessions of aid which they received. Thus, this article presents a historical view of the law relating to foreign nationals in the Spain of the 18th Century, and more precisely, international labour law which, from its scientific position, forms part of private international law.