Wealthy Business Families in Glasgow and Liverpool, 1870-1930 a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY In Trade: Wealthy Business Families in Glasgow and Liverpool, 1870-1930 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Field of History By Emma Goldsmith EVANSTON, ILLINOIS December 2017 2 Abstract This dissertation provides an account of the richest people in Glasgow and Liverpool at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. It focuses on those in shipping, trade, and shipbuilding, who had global interests and amassed large fortunes. It examines the transition away from family business as managers took over, family successions altered, office spaces changed, and new business trips took hold. At the same time, the family itself underwent a shift away from endogamy as young people, particularly women, rebelled against the old way of arranging marriages. This dissertation addresses questions about gentrification, suburbanization, and the decline of civic leadership. It challenges the notion that businessmen aspired to become aristocrats. It follows family businessmen through the First World War, which upset their notions of efficiency, businesslike behaviour, and free trade, to the painful interwar years. This group, once proud leaders of Liverpool and Glasgow, assimilated into the national upper-middle class. This dissertation is rooted in the family papers left behind by these families, and follows their experiences of these turbulent and eventful years. 3 Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the advising of Deborah Cohen. Her inexhaustible willingness to comment on my writing and improve my ideas has shaped every part of this dissertation, and I owe her many thanks. The other members of my committee, Joel Mokyr and Scott Sowerby, have also improved this work and my thinking overall. Other faculty members including Chris Lane, Alex Owen, and Tracy Davis have helped me along the way, and I am thankful for their support. The funding for this work came from the History department at Northwestern, the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, and the Buffett Institute for Global Studies. This research would not have possible without the help of the archivists and searchroom assistants at the Glasgow Mitchell Library, the Glasgow University Archives, the Liverpool Record Office, the Liverpool Maritime Museum (and Special Collections), and the Liverpool University Archives. I encountered great enthusiasm and helpfulness at all these archives and am grateful to them. I would like to particularly acknowledge Helena Smart for her help with the Jewish archives at the Liverpool Record Office. Much of this work has been through workshops organized by the Long Nineteenth Century Colloquium and the British Studies Cluster at Northwestern. To everyone who took the time to read and comment on my work, thank you. The fresh eyes of those outside the discipline of history have improved my work immensely. My colleagues and friends at Northwestern have done a great deal of editing, and over the years we have also discussed historical theories and debated all kinds of problems. Alex 4 Lindgren-Gibson, Beth Healey, Emilie Takayama Mouchel, Marlous van Waijenburg, Sam Kling, Ashley Johnson, Emily Hoyler, and Ariel Schwartz are all due a special mention. Other friends outside the university have helped me along the way, including Sara Jatcko, Rob Winkeler, Jin Kim, Eleanor Matthews, Reema Mehta, and Katie Sanderson. My grandparents, John and Angela Goldsmith and Jim and Audrey Beal, have helped throughout my education. My love of history began with their stories of their lives and their ancestors. My final debt is to my parents, whose work on multiple drafts of this dissertation has been invaluable. Without their support this could not have been completed. 5 Dedication For mum and dad 6 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................2 Acknowledgements .....................................................................................................................3 Dedication ...................................................................................................................................5 Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................6 List of Illustrations and Maps ......................................................................................................8 Introduction ................................................................................................................................9 Chapter One Business ............................................................................................................... 23 Historiography ...................................................................................................................... 25 Technology ........................................................................................................................... 34 Legal change ......................................................................................................................... 35 Geopolitics ............................................................................................................................ 38 Business premises and culture ............................................................................................... 40 Business succession............................................................................................................... 46 Business travel ...................................................................................................................... 52 Cosmopolitanism .................................................................................................................. 65 End of family business .......................................................................................................... 68 Chapter Two Kinship ................................................................................................................ 70 Endogamy and kinship in the mid-nineteenth century ............................................................ 72 Kinship socializing in the mid-nineteenth century ................................................................. 76 ‘Society’................................................................................................................................ 80 Pride in kinship ..................................................................................................................... 84 Unsuitable marriage .............................................................................................................. 89 Decline of the Kinship Marriage System ............................................................................... 94 Decline in fertility ................................................................................................................. 99 Decline in married population ............................................................................................. 102 Unmarried rich women ........................................................................................................ 106 7 Work and women ................................................................................................................ 110 Effects of the decline of kinship marriage system ................................................................ 112 Sect and the kinship marriage system .................................................................................. 114 International marriage ......................................................................................................... 117 Chapter Three Home and Leisure ............................................................................................ 127 Religion and suburbanization .............................................................................................. 137 Personal quirks and suburbanization .................................................................................... 144 Gender and property ............................................................................................................ 148 Living outside the city ......................................................................................................... 156 Shooting .............................................................................................................................. 159 Golf..................................................................................................................................... 165 Decline in civic leadership................................................................................................... 170 Assessing the gentrification thesis ....................................................................................... 180 Chapter Four War ................................................................................................................... 182 Volunteer Soldiers ............................................................................................................... 185 Boer War............................................................................................................................. 189 The First World War 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