The British business census of entrepreneurs and firm-size, 1851–1881: New data for economic and business historians

Lieshout, Carry van; Bennett, Robert J.; Smith, Harry

doi:10.1080/01615440.2019.1707140

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Recent large-scale census analysis confirms that high rates of female proprietorship were limited to a narrow range of sectors. It also shows critical differences between women: proprietorship was a route to independence that was otherwise difficult for many single women; but for married women it was important for offering opportunities to supplement family income, especially where necessity required it (Bennett et al 2019b: 169-74;Smith et al 2020).…”

Section: Career Choice From Intercensus Record-linkagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As suggested by Crossick (1978) and Anderson (1971Anderson ( , 1988 this could be rather exploitative, holding back offspring who had otherwise no alternative but the leave home, though of course these sons and daughters might eventually take over a business. It is also reflects the fact that it was rare for children to run their own business while living with parents (Smith et al, 2020) and more common to set up their own household. Being another relative or nonrelative in the household does not appear significant influence on entry; this is a contrast to the wider role played in many family businesses prior to entry as proprietor found by Davidoff (2012), though this was based only on case studies.…”

Section: Nonfarm Proprietorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For England and Wales a proportion of the records is missing: 2.0 percent for 1851, 3.7 percent for 1861, and 0.1 percent for 1881(van Lieshout et al 2020). …”

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Business Entry and Exit: Career Changes of Proprietors in England and Wales (1851–81) Using Record-Linkage

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The article links the digital records of individual proprietors in the manuscript censuses 1851–81 for the whole of England and Wales using the BBCE database to identify career changes of employers and own account proprietors. It investigates continuing proprietorship, entry to business from previous activity, and switching out of business. The article identifies the effects on switching of demography, gender, household relationships, sector markets, and opportunity/necessity measured by location and access to railways. Previous analysis of nineteenth-century proprietor careers has been based mainly on local case studies and large firms. This article allows examination across the spectrum of small and large businesses for a representative sample large enough to generalize to the behavior of the whole population. The analysis shows a larger proportion of flows between employer, own account, and worker status than often expected, indicating a relatively open and flexible Victorian economy, and higher than in the modern United Kingdom. Farm and nonfarm activities show contrasted patterns, with farm proprietors more stable with less switching, as to be expected. Switching appears to have slowed slightly over time, with incumbency increasing for both farm and nonfarm employers, and for both men and women, but own account proprietorship was often relatively ephemeral. The article assesses the factors influencing switching using logistic regression. This confirms age, sex, marital status, family position, location, and sector as significant for explaining switching/nonswitching. The results demonstrate that although open and flexible, proprietorship was highly varied between sectors, with changes of railway accessibility mainly significant for farmers.

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Section: Career Choice From Intercensus Record-linkagementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nonfarm Proprietorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Business Entry and Exit: Career Changes of Proprietors in England and Wales (1851–81) Using Record-Linkage

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“…It was believed that fair competition would afford middle‐ and working‐class entrepreneurs, regardless of their capital, an opportunity to prosper. Late‐nineteenth‐century census data on businesses prompted van Lieshout et al. to observe that Britain had a higher number of large firms than did the United States.…”

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confidence: 99%

Review of periodical literature for 2021

Varian

2022

The Economic History Review

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Occasionally, several articles published in the same year converge upon a quite specific theme. Sometimes, the convergence may be attributed to newly available data, for example, from population censuses, or to a significant anniversary, for example, the centenary of the First World War. Other times, it may arise from an ambitious programme of research having come to fruition. Yet, especially for the heavily studied period from 1850 to 1945, there are occasions when the clustering of articles around a closely circumscribed theme happens, seemingly, by chance. These serendipitous convergences afford readers of economic and social history a more comprehensive treatment of topics than would have been expected. One of the purposes of this review (and one of the joys of the reviewer) is to bring these convergences to the attention of economic and social historians.In 2021, no less than five articles converged, serendipitously, on the topic of British emigration to Australasia. These articles spanned six authors and three journals, viz. Australian Economic History Review, Historical Research, and Social History of Medicine. Relying on shipping records, Ward estimates that, during the period from 1852 to 1915, approximately 20 per cent of British emigrants to the colony of Victoria eventually returned to Britain. The returning migrants, who were mostly women, were strongly influenced by social networks. Ward's article includes both quantitative analysis and biographical vignettes of returning migrants. One of these migrants was Annie Martlew, who emigrated from Liverpool to Melbourne in 1884, only to return two decades later as a widow with five young children, motivated by the existence of a stronger support network in Britain. Social networks are a potential explanation for a paradox identified by Hatton in his study of emigration from the United Kingdom to the Anglosphere during the late nineteenth century. Surprisingly, he finds that emigrants to Australia and New Zealand were, on average, more skilled than emigrants to Canada and the United States, despite wages exhibiting a higher skill premium in North America. Hatton speculates that the lower skill content of emigrants from the United Kingdom-importantly, including Ireland-to the United States (vis-à-vis migrants to Australasia) might be due to the presence of greater networks of previous migrants there. Leaving aside the skill content of migrants, the sheer number of migrants to Australasia was positively influenced byThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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The Trees of the Forest: Uncovering Small-Scale Producers in an Industrial District, 1781–1851

Lane¹

2022

Enterp. Soc.

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This article uses trade directories and notifications in the London Gazette to reconstruct the Potteries industrial district at the firm level for 1781 to 1851, a dynamic period of growth for a knowledge-intensive industry. It cuts across the organizational spectrum of the district in terms of the scale and scope of firms traditionally examined by including both the larger lead-firms and the smaller firms for which limited or no business records survive. It addresses difficulties associated with analysis of early clusters before the late nineteenth century. Directories offer a consistent series of records that, when cross-referenced with the Gazette and local newspapers, allow for detailed examination of firm behavior and the structure of the district during a formative growth period. Analysis highlights patterns of cooperative competition in an industry in which tacit knowledge played a crucial role as a source of competitive advantage, raises questions for future research, and provides an empirical base on which to consider further investigation of the trees that made up the forest.

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The British business census of entrepreneurs and firm-size, 1851–1881: New data for economic and business historians

Cited by 6 publications

References 32 publications

Business Entry and Exit: Career Changes of Proprietors in England and Wales (1851–81) Using Record-Linkage

Business Entry and Exit: Career Changes of Proprietors in England and Wales (1851–81) Using Record-Linkage

Review of periodical literature for 2021

The Trees of the Forest: Uncovering Small-Scale Producers in an Industrial District, 1781–1851

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