At common law in England, the general lien developed as ‘a right to retain the
property of another on account of a general balance due from the owner’.
In addition to commercial convenience, the rationale behind general lien developed as a way to satisfy a need for financing of industrialization and increasingly complex transactions involving multiple parties in the multi-step process of manufacturing and finishing goods in industries, such as textiles, that had a chronic lack of credit
and a rudimentary banking system.