Assets of the Dead: Wealth, Investment, and Modernity in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century England and Wales

This article analyses female entrepreneurship in late Victorian and Edwardian England. Traditional views on female entrepreneurship in nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century England point towards a decline in the number and relevance of women as business owners in comparison to the eighteenth century, and their retreat into a ‘separate sphere’ away from the world of trade and production. Recent studies, however, have deeply challenged this view, suggesting that women still played an important role as entrepreneurs during industrialization and beyond. Nevertheless, a number of questions remain unanswered with regard to the features of female entrepreneurship during these phases of British history, and issues such as scale of operation, attitude to risk, credit structure, and managerial styles are still widely debated. Using original sources, this article provides a novel view on these issues, analysing female entrepreneurship from the perspective of bankruptcy. Analysing statistics on women's bankruptcy derived from Board of Trade reports, as well as a sample of archival cases, this article argues that overall female business owners traded in ways similar to their male counterparts in terms of business size, risk‐taking, and, eventually, success.

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“…Green, Owens, Swan, and van Lieshout, ‘Assets of the dead’, pp. 67–8; Green et al., ‘Nation of shareholders’, p. 158.…”

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confidence: 99%

Risk, success, and failure: female entrepreneurship in late Victorian and Edwardian England

Aston¹,

Martino

2017

The Economic History Review

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“…In the first place, the data only refer to those individuals who owned sufficient assets at the time of their death to warrant the submission of accounts for the assessment of death duties. Second, any evidence derived at the end of life For further discussion and analysis of this data sample, see Green et al (2011). See also Green et al (2007).…”

Section: Data Characteristics and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar research is also progressing on other countries. For work on Swedish, Canadian, Australian, Canadian and Italian shareholders, see Laurence et al (2009) and Green et al (2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting all their eggs in one basket? Portfolio diversification 1870–1902

Sotiropoulos

2016

Accounting History Review

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There are a number of reasons why investor portfolio characteristics are of interest. First, there is limited evidence of what individual investors actually held in their portfolios in the past, including, for example, whether there were significant differences between male and female investors. Second, investors' portfolio holdings are relevant to the debate on the 'democratisation' of investment and, third, the inform the debate on whether investors in the past made efforts to reduce portfolio risk through diversification, before the full 'scientific' approach of the early twentieth century and the Markowitz optimisation approach of the mid-twentieth century. This paper explores the portfolio choices made by a sample of 508 investors-263 men and 245 women-between 1870 and 1902. There is evidence of diversification, with the average holding of the sample being 4.6 securities. There is also evidence of increasing levels of diversification over time, of international diversification, and greater diversification by wealthy men and women. Investors in the past clearly made efforts to reduce portfolio risk before Markowitz optimisation.

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“…Relatively few historians have used these data to explore individual wealth holding. See Collinge, ‘Probate valuations’; Combs, ‘They lived’; English, ‘Probate valuations’; idem, ‘Wealth at death’; Green et al., ‘Lives in the balance?’; Green, Owens, Swan, and van Lieshout, ‘Assets of the dead’; Mandler, ‘Art, death and taxes’; Owens, Green, Bailey, and Kay, ‘Measure of worth’; Rubinstein, ‘Cutting up rich’; Thompson, ‘Life after death’; idem, ‘Stitching it together’.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Green et al., ‘Lives in the balance?’; Green et al., ‘Assets of the dead’; Rutterford et al., ‘Nation of shareholders’.…”

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confidence: 99%

Geographies of wealth: real estate and personal property ownership in England and Wales, 1870–1902

Green

Owens

2013

The Economic History Review

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This article explores the composition and geographies of individual wealth holding in England and Wales in the late nineteenth century. It draws on various forms of death duty records to determine the individual ownership of wealth including both personal property and real estate. By combining information on these different kinds of property, it is possible to explore how different strata of wealth holders accumulated specific forms of wealth at the time of their death. The article then examines how the composition of that wealth varied according to the wealth holder's location in the urban hierarchy and distance from London. It points out important geographical differences in both the scale and nature of wealth holding and raises questions about the implications of these findings.

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Assets of the Dead: Wealth, Investment, and Modernity in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century England and Wales

Cited by 11 publications

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Risk, success, and failure: female entrepreneurship in late Victorian and Edwardian England

Risk, success, and failure: female entrepreneurship in late Victorian and Edwardian England

Putting all their eggs in one basket? Portfolio diversification 1870–1902

Geographies of wealth: real estate and personal property ownership in England and Wales, 1870–1902

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