Alexis Wearmouth Thesis Final
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University of Dundee DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Thomas Duff & Co and the Jute Industry in Calcutta, 1870-1921 Managing Agents and Firm Strategy Wearmouth, Alexis Award date: 2015 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 24. Sep. 2021 1 Thomas Duff & Co and the Jute Industry in Calcutta, 1870-1921; Managing Agents and Firm Strategy. Alexis Wearmouth Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Dundee January 2015 2 DECLARATION OF THE CANDIDATE I declare that I am the author of this thesis, that I have consulted all references cited, that I have carried out the work reported in the thesis and that no part of this thesis has been previously accepted for a higher degree Alexis Wearmouth 3 DECLARATION OF THE SUPERVISOR I hereby declare that Alexis Wearmouth has satisfied all the terms and conditions of the relevant Ordinance and Regulations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dr Carlo Morelli 4 Acknowledgements I am indebted to the many individuals whose support enabled me to complete this thesis. My supervisor Dr Carlo Morelli demonstrated inexhaustible patience to permit me to transform my research into a coherent argument. I am also grateful to my second supervisor Professor Jim Tomlinson for his advice, encouragement and support. My colleague on the “Jute and Dundee” research project, Dr Valerie Wright, provided the initial inspiration to explore the archive of Thomas Duff & Co more closely. I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for funding the course of the thesis, and to the Economic History Society for the grant of a travel bursary that enabled me to conduct archival research in Calcutta. I wish to acknowledge the support of Professor Amiya Bagchi in providing an introduction to the staff of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and of the Indian Jute Mills Association, and that of Professor Samita Sen, in Calcutta. Professor Gordon Stewart generously shared his notes from Indian Jute Mills Association annual reports that have subsequently been destroyed by fire. I am grateful to Professor Tom Tomlinson for his comments and advice, and for the observations and suggestions of Professors Maxine Berg, Janette Rutterford, Ranald Michie and Martin Daunton when presenting an earlier version of my research at the Economic History Society annual conference in 2011, and of Professor Peter Robb at the South Asia History Seminar of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Professors Hassan Molana and Monojit Chatterjee and other colleagues provided critical comments of work in progress in the Economic Studies postgraduate seminar at the University of Dundee, while departmental secretary June Campbell has been unfailingly helpful. The archivists at the University of Dundee provided indispensable support and tolerated my long stint there with great patience. I’m particularly grateful to Michael Bolik for his help in 5 navigating the archive and to Dr Kenneth Baxter for sharing his knowledge of Dundee’s local history. Subhodip Ghosh, deputy secretary of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, was extremely generous and accommodating in providing access to the Chamber’s records over an extended period of time. I also wish to acknowledge the help of Pulakesh Chatterji, Secretary General of the Indian Jute Mills Association, and of his staff. I am thankful for the help of the archival staff at the National Library of India, Calcutta, the West Bengal State Archive, the British Library, Glasgow University archive, the National Library and National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, Dundee City Archive, Dundee City Library, Abertay University Library, The School of Oriental and African Studies and The Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge. It remains to thank friends and colleagues. Nandini Sen, Arnab Bhattacharjee, Dilshad Jahan, Rosen Azad Chowdhury, John-Paul Queen, Barbara Cohen, Rachel Cohen and Simon Kirwin provided hospitality and friendship in Calcutta, Dundee and London. Anna Sailer and Tariq Omar Ali shared insights from their own research on the Calcutta jute industry. Suchetana Chattopadhyay, Aditya Sarkar, John Game and Gajendra Singh expanded my horizons with their knowledge of the history of South Asia. In the closing stages of the thesis, Sai Englert, James Eastwood, Sandy Nicoll, Graham Dyer and Sean Wallis stepped heroically into the breach to release me from work-related commitments. Lorenza Monaco, Toufic Haddad, Jonny Darlington, Miriyam Aouragh, Jonathan Neale, Jamie Allinson, Ruth Lorimer, Rick Hughes, Alex Humes, Marilyn Stewart and other friends and colleagues too numerous to name, (fractional, factional and spiritual), distracted, inspired and provided practical solidarity and moral support. Sara Stevano has shared companionship and valuable research insights. I dedicate this thesis to my family Liz, Colin and Nik Wearmouth, and to my temporarily adopted family Anne Alexander, Dave Renton, Sammy and Benjy Alexander Renton, whose extraordinary generosity and friendship permitted me to keep going. 6 Abstract/ Synopsis This thesis is about the nature of the rapid growth of the jute manufacturing industry in colonial India in the age of the “imperialism of free trade”. It seeks to understand how the managing agents who controlled the jute mill companies in Calcutta internalised a competitive advantage that generated lucrative rents through a case study of the history of the Dundee- based managing agents, Thomas Duff & Co. The thesis argues that the industry experienced a pattern of extensive growth with static technology that led to rising costs and pressure on profits and dividends. Nevertheless, the pattern of entry into the industry indicates the existence of institutional barriers to entry. Managing agents like Thomas Duff & Co were able to take advantage of and shape these barriers through strategic behaviour. They created a company form that allowed the structuring of incentives to reproduce a functional managerial hierarchy and renew their competitive advantage over time. Strategic behaviour by the founding directors of Thomas Duff & Co extended to actively shaping the business environment in which the firm operated by anticipating and neutralising threats to their control of the directorate, intervening in the supply chain to manage costs and cajoling other managing agents to cooperate to manage competition. The success of these strategies led to growth, which entailed the creation of a popular base of shareholdings. This dilution of formal ownership proved to be compatible with retaining control and generating rents while minimising risk. 7 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................. 12 Chapter 1; The Calcutta Jute Industry, 1870-1921; a quantitative study of the industry. From boom and bust to steady growth. .............................................................................................. 45 Chapter 2; Variations in the Performance of Jute Mill Companies and their Managing Agencies to 1921. ............................................................................................................. 87 Chapter 3; The Origins and Growth of Foreign Direct Investment in the Calcutta Jute Industry by a Dundonian Multinational Enterprise – a Case Study of the Thomas Duff & Co managing agency, 1872-1921. ........................................................................................................... 131 3.1 Overview, 1874-1921. 136 3.2 The Making of a Managing Agency; From the Samnuggur Co to Thomas Duff & Co, 1874-88. 151 3.3 The Evolution of the Thomas Duff & Co Group Structure, 1888-1918. 179 Chapter 4; Thomas Duff & Co: Control and Managing Competition. ....................................... 210 4.1 Countering Threats to the Managing Agents’ Control 211 4.2 Networked Firms as a Method of Informal Vertical Intergration – Thomas Duff & Co and R Sim & Co. 228 4.3 Regulating competition: Thomas Duff’s strategy in the Indian Jute Mills Association, 1884-1921. 240 Chapter 5; Shareholdings in the Thomas Duff & Co Group, 1874-1921. .................................. 257 Conclusion. ........................................................................................................... 293 Bibliography. ........................................................................................................... 299 Appendix: Notes on sources and quantitative methods employed in Chapters 2-3. ............... 304 8 List of Tables and Figures: Chapter 1 Table 1.1: Growth of Calcutta Jute Industry, 1880-1920, quantities. ......................................... 46 Table 1.2: Paid up share capital of Calcutta jute mill companies, 1880-1920. ........................... 46 Figure 1.1: Growth