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Flotation Booms in the Cotton Spinning Industry, 1870–1890: A Comparative Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Shin'ichi Yonekawa
Shin'ichi Yonekawa
Affiliation:
Shin'ichi Yonekawa is a member of the Faculty of Commerce at Hitotsubashi University.
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Abstract

In this wide-ranging article, Professor Yonekawa identifies and examines in detail the burst of cotton spinning company formation that occurred in the late nineteenth century among the major cotton-producing nations of the world. His comparative approach allows him to focus on key local factors responsible for the company flotation booms in the areas discussed. He is also able to compare the effects of more general circumstances in the industry, such as trends in the price of raw cotton and the disruption during the American Civil War, on the various locations. Finally, his multinational approach brings to light many intriguing questions and illuminates areas for productive future research.

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Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 61 , Issue 4 , Winter 1987 , pp. 551 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1987

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References

1 I am concerned primarily with cotton spinning companies, but the degree of integration of spinning and weaving varies across the areas studied. In Lancashire, especially in Oldham, spinning tended to remain separate; in the United States, spinning and weaving were usually integrated from the start; in India and Japan, a mixture of separate and integrated companies was the norm early on, but the trend was toward integration.

Some qualification is necessary concerning the United States. The founders of the Lowell mills used the public sale of stock even before limited liability laws were passed; indeed, it was their activity that provoked requests for such legislation. Further, in the United States the export of cotton goods did not occupy a high proportion of the total production. See Dodd, E. Merrick, American Business Corporations until 1860, with Special Reference to Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), 377–84Google Scholar; Peck, Frederick M. and Earl, Henry H., Fall River and Its Industries (New York, 1877), 91–95Google Scholar; Copeland, Melvin T., The Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States ([1912]; Cambridge, Mass., 1923), 223–25Google Scholar; Clark, W. A. Graham, Cotton Goods in Japan and Their Competition on the Manchurian Market (Washington, D.C., 1914), 227ffGoogle Scholar.

2 For a general description of the Oldham Limiteds, see the following; Ellison, Thomas, The Cotton Trade of Great Britain (London, 1886), 133–40Google Scholar; Vogelstein, T., Organisationsformen der Eisenindustrie und Textilindustrie in England und Amerika (Leipzig, 1910), 114ff.Google Scholar; Clapham, John H., An Economic History of Modern Britain (New York, 1932), 2:140–44Google Scholar; Jeffreys, J. B., “Trends in Business Organization in Great Britain since 1856” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1938), 84–96Google Scholar; Farnie, Douglas A., “The English Cotton Industry, 1850–1896” (M.A. thesis, University of Manchester, 1953)Google Scholar; Smith, R., “A History of Lancashire Cotton Industry between the Year 1873 and 1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Birmingham, 1954)Google Scholar; Tyson, R. E., “The Sun Mill Company Limited—A Study of Democratic Investment, 1858–1959” (M.A. thesis, University of Manchester, 1962)Google Scholar; Smith, R., “An Oldham Limited Liability Company, 1875–1896,” Business History 4 (1967)Google Scholar; Farnie, Douglas A., The English Cotton Industry and the World Market (Oxford, 1979), 244–76Google Scholar; Gurr, D. and Hunt, J., The Cotton Mills of Oldham (1985)Google Scholar. Regarding company histories, see Royton Spinning Co. Ltd., 1871–1951 (Rochdale, 1951)Google Scholar and The Shiloh Story, 1874–1974 (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Oldham Standard, 18 Sept. 1869, 31; 18 June 1870, 8iv; 16 July 1870, 3v.

3 The following description is based on local newspapers and company files deposited at the Public Record Office and the Company Registration Office in London. Concerning the list of companies registered during the boom, see The Co-operative Wholesale Society: Annual for the Year 1884, 204–12.

4 Oldham Chronicle, 7 Aug. 1875, 8ii; The Co-operative Wholesale Society: Annual for the year 1884, 186–88.

5 Jones, Benjamin, Co-operative Production (Oxford, 1894)Google Scholar; E. V. Neale, “The Registration relating to Industrial and Provident Societies,” The Co-operative Wholesale Society Annual (1887), 344–74; Farnie, English Cotton Industry and the World Market, chaps. 6–7.

6 PRO, BT 30/14480/8164; The Co-operative Wholesale Society: Annual for the Year 1884, 189–92. The start of the operation of the Central Mill Company, an early representative of the Oldham Limiteds, also stimulated the mill construction boom. See the Oldham Standard, 12 April 1873, 6iii.

7 Concerning the cotton industry of Fall River, see the following: Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, especially 131–44; G. M. Haffords & Co., Fall River and Its Manufactories, 1803–1906 (1907); Fenner, Henry M., History of Fall River, Massachusetts (New York, 1911)Google Scholar; Lamb, R. K., “The Development of Entrepreneurship in Fall River, 1813–1859” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1935)Google Scholar; Smith, Thomas R., The Cotton Textile Industry of Fall River: A Study of Industrial Localization (New York, 1944)Google Scholar; Lamb, R. K., “The Entrepreneur in the Community,” in Men in Business: Essays in the Historical Role of the Entrepreneur, ed. Miller, William (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

8 Fall River Weekly News, 23 Oct. 1873, 2vi; 14 Jan. 1875, 2vi.

9 Fenner, History of Fall River, 30–31. “Up to the present time it is doubtful if a single share of manufacturing stock in any of our corporations has been held by any French resident.” Fall River Weekly News, 8 March 1884, liii. Also see Silvia, P. T. Jr, “The Position of Workers in a Textile Community: Fall River in the Early 1880s,” Labor History 16 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ware, Caroline F., The Early New England Cotton Manufacture (Boston, 1931), 36–38Google Scholar; W. R. Bagnall, “Papers relating to Manufacturing Establishments,” typescript, Baker Library, Harvard Business School, 3: 1861ff.; Lamb, “Development of Entrepreneurship in Fall River,” chap. 2; Lamb, “The Entrepreneur in the Community,” 102–6. In the 1820s, large landowning families like the Bordens launched several mills making the best use of their water rights, but the latecomers who made their mark in the textile industry rose to eminence in the town during the 1860s. For example, F. H. Stafford, the principal organizer of Stafford Mills, “is one of the few practical manufacturers of to-day, whose life has encompassed almost the whole range of cotton manufacture from its beginnings in this country.” Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 131.

10 Concerning Bombay's cotton textile industry, see the following records and works, The Report of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce for the Year 1874–5, Appendix; The Report of the Bombay Millowners' Association for the Year 1882; A. F. B., Indian Cotton Statistics: Statistical Tables Relating to Indian Cotton, Indian Spinning and Weaving Mills, their Production and Distribution with a List of the Steam Presses in the Country (1889); Rutnagur, S. M., Bombay Industries: The Cotton Mills (Bombay, 1927)Google Scholar; Mehta, S. D., The Cotton Mills of India, 1854–1954 (Bombay, 1954), 3–13Google Scholar.

11 For more information on the managing agency, see Locanathan, Industrial Organization in India (1935); Employers' Association, The Achievement of the Managing Agency System (1954); Kling, B. B., “The Origin of the Managing Agency System in India,” Journal of Asian Studies 26 (1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rungta, R. S., The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851–1900 (New York, 1970), 219ffGoogle Scholar. “While on this subject [the system] the first question suggests itself, is there a mill in Bombay which has no agents? I am sure the answer will be none; and no amount of ingenuity can gainsay the fact.” The Times of India, 28 Nov. 1873, 3iv-v. It was not always necessary for agents to own all the controlling shares themselves. N. Kesowjee owned 88 shares of Royal S & W Company, but also controlled 328 shares owned by the other stockholders. The Times of India, 9 March 1871, i–iii.

12 The face value of a share was about R. 5,000 in the 1860s, but it by the boom period it had dropped to about R.1,000 or R.500. Company Registrations of Bombay, Company File, 19/1; 21/2. In 1880 10 rupees equaled about one English pound.

When four companies managed by Kesowji Naik went into insolvency in 1879, the stockholders owning onlv one share were as follows:

The list of stock prices had appeared in The Times of India since the founding mania of the 1860s, and 36 stockbrokers were recorded in 1874. The Times of India: Calendar and Bombay Directory for 1874, 771. See also Rungta, Rise of Business Corporations in India, 208–9.

13 The Times of India, 8 March 1875, 2i; 8 June 1875, 4i; A. F. B., Cotton Statistics, 105.

14 The Co-operative Wholesale Society: Annual for the Year 1884, 204–9.

15 Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 69–70; Smith, Cotton Textile Industry of Fall River, 71–74; Spalding, R. V., “The Boston Mercantile Community and the Promotion of the Textile Industry in New England, 1813–1860” (Ph.D diss., Yale, 1963), 33–89Google Scholar. Regarding the companies of Fall River founded in the first half of the nineteenth century, see Bagnall, “Papers relating to Manufacturing Establishments,” 3: 1861ff.; Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 118–21. Up to the late 1880s, the Island of Bombay was by far the largest cotton textile area in India, occupying some 70 percent of the total spindlage. Indian Cotton Statistics, 98–100.

16 Rungta, Rise of Business Corporations in India, 284, Appendix 8; Rungta, , “Indian Company Law Problems in 1850,” American journal of Legal History 6 (1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts for 1849–1851, Chapter 133; 1870, Chapter 224; Dodd, American Business Corporations until 1860, 310–26.

18 A. B. Shepperson, Cotton Facts (1879), 9, 29. The trend on the price of Middling Uplands can be compiled from The Financial and Commercial Chronicle, 1869–73; the figure for Liverpool was compiled from the Oldham Chronicle, 1869–73; also see Shepperson, Cotton Facts, 29; for India, A. F. B., Indian Cotton Statistics, 26; Shepperson, Cotton Facts, 32. The average export price was obtained by dividing the total value of export by the export volumes.

19 Oldham Standard, 18 July 1870.

20 Ellison, Cotton Trade of Great Britain, Appendix, Table 2. It was after the mid-1870s that the export of cotton yarn to China increased remarkably. The Review of the Trade of British India for the Official year 1877–78 (1879), 15–16.

21 Smith, Cotton Textile Industry of Fall River, 41; K. Rook, Fall River: Today and Tomorrow (1972), 12.

22 Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 130; Farnie, English Cotton Industry and the World Market, 246–47.

23 Smith, Cotton Textile Industry of Fall River, 40; Farnie, Douglas A., “The Structure of the British Cotton Industry, 1846–1914,” in The Textile Industry and Its Business Climate, ed. Okochi, Akio and Yonekawa, Shin'ichi (Tokyo, 1982), 60Google Scholar.

24 Farnie, English Cotton Industry and the World Market, 159.

25 Neither Lowell nor Lawrence participated in the flotation boom of 1870–73 despite their good performances. For example, Boston Manufacturing Co. paid a 12 percent dividend in 1872, twice as high as that of the late 1870s, and Lyman Mills paid a 10 percent dividend in the same year, though no dividend in 1876, the year of depression. The Amoskeag Company in New Hampshire performed similarly. Documents on file in the Department of Manuscripts and Archives, Baker Library.

26 The Times of India, 16 Oct. 1873, 3; Vicziany, A. M., “The Cotton Trade and the Commercial Development of Bombay, 1857–1875” (Ph. D. diss., University of London, 1975), 260Google Scholar; Vicziany, , “Bombay Merchant and Structural Changes in the Export Community, 1850–1880,” in Economy and Society: Essays in Indian Economic and Social History, ed. Chaudhuri, K. N. and Dewey, Clive J. (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar.

27 “The working classes were never so prosperous as at the present time—certainly their wages were never so high.” The Oldham Standard, 3 March 1874, 5v. See also the Oldham Chronicle, 13 Feb. 1875. 8vi; while local banks paid 2.5 percent on deposits, the cooperative societies could pay 5 percent interest on their share capital. The Oldham Chronicle, 21 July 1877, 7iii.

28 The Co-operative News (1872), 11; J. C. Taylor, The Jubilee History of the Oldham Industrial Co-operative Society Limited (1900), 92; The Co-operator (1867), 267; (1873), 78.

29 Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 171; The Centenary of the Fall River Saving Bank (1928), 14ff.

30 “Of the fifty-two Banks and Financial Institutions of February 1865 just four remain of decided practical benefit to the community.…” The Times of India, Overland Summary, 8–28 Dec. 1866, 3v–vi. “Unfortunately, however, since the year 1868,… our market has continued gradually to become worse.” The Bombay Gazette, Overland Summary, 31 Dec. 1870, 5iii. Also see The Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, 1: 288–92. The Times of India reported: “Whenever a foreign market has been brought into telegraphic communication with great produce marts, the margin of profit immediately disappears. This is not particular to Bombay.” 16 Oct. 1873, 3i.

31 The Times of India: Calendar and Bombay Directory for 1874, 425; bank rate compiled from The Times of India and The Bombay Gazette, 1870–73. Also see Muranjan, S. K., Modern Banking in India (Bombay, 1940), 72–73Google Scholar, and Shirras, G. F., Indian Finance and Banking (London, 1919), 470–71Google Scholar.

32 “Mills and Their Progress, No. 1, Sun Mill,” The Oldham Standard, 13 July 1907, 14iv; The Cooperative News (1872), 597; Farnie, English Cotton Industry and the World Market, 249–50; Fall River Weekly News, 13 March 1871, 2v; The Indian Textile Journal (Feb. 1900), 135. The Oriental Spinning & Weaving Company was first built as a private enterprise by D. M. Petit in 1855, its stocks being opened in 1856. It was registered the next year, after the enactment of the Indian Companies Act.

33 E. B. Bigelow, Remarks on the Depressed Condition of Manufacturers in Massachusetts (1858), cited in Spalding, “The Boston Mercantile Community and the Promotion of the Textile Industry,” 212.

34 Despite some counter-opinions, I believe this is undeniable. “There can be no question but that the working classes supply one-half of the capital of all these companies.” Co-operative News (1877), 167. For example, at Shiloh, which was registered in 1874, of 288 stockholders a considerable number owned one share only; furthermore, 42 stockholders designated their occupation as “laborer.” PRO, BT. 31/14486/8310.

35 “Officers of mills are generally large stockholders.” Fall River Weekly News, 24 Sept. 1885, 2vi. Spinners of Fall River bought cotton directly in the South and sold print cloths they manufactured locally in the open market of the town. Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 99. There is no evidence that merchant-entrepreneurs took a role in the founding boom, though the situation changed during the following depression. M. C. D. Borden, the largest print-cloth merchant in New York, changed the Fall River Iron Works, then not operative, into a huge textile firm controlling 265,000 spindles and 7,700 looms, integrating processes of print-cloth production and building four efficient mills in the town in 1889–95. Copeland, Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the United States, 205, 208; Smith, Cotton Textile Industry of Fall River, 80–82.

36 Many of the company promoters were members of the Bombay Native Merchants' Association; The Times of India: Calendar and Bombay Directory (1884), 436.

37 The Oldham Standard, 28 Feb. 1874, liv; 9 Jan. 1875, 4vii; 6 March 1875, 5vi–vii; Oldham Chronicle, 22 Jan. 1876, 3v; Smith, “An Oldham Limited Liability Company,” 41; Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 64–66. A project for a co-operative spinning company failed in the boom years. Fall River Weekly News, 11 Feb. 1869, 2iv; 16 April 1874, 2vi; 14 Jan. 1875, 2vii. It was assumed that stocks were called only by half at Oldham.

38 Jefferys, J. B., “Trends in Business Organization in Great Britain since 1856” (Ph.D. diss.. University of London, 1938), 84–96Google Scholar; Vogelstein, Organisationsformen der Eisenindustrie und Textilindustrie, 117–21; Farnie, “English Cotton Industry"; Farnie, English Cotton Industry and the World Market, 152–55.

39 This measure had already been taken at the Winsor Cotton Spinning Company, “subject to a favourable answer from the registrar of joint-stock companies as to the legality of the proceding in 1874, shortly after its foundation. This sort of reduction of capital could be widely observed in the brisk years of the industry. Thus, of ten companies organized at Royton and Shaw, four carried out such a reduction of capital. CRO, Company File, no. 9131; PRO, BT 31/14517/9184, 14726/17891, 14762/19447. Oldham Chronicle, 4 Dec. 1874, 8vi 16 Dec. 1875, 8i.

40 Compiled from records in Sanford and Kelley, comps., Fall River: Statistics relating to its Cotton Manufacturing Corporations for the Year 1880 (New Bedford, 1917)Google Scholar. As a newspaper reported, “The mill lords own the city, banks run the political machine, and the workers also belong to them. “ Fall River Weekly Xews, 21 Feb. 1884, liii.

41 For the details of this “unprecedented scandal in Mass.,” see Fall River Weekly News, 11 April 1878, 2iv; 25 April 1878, 2vi; 7 Oct. 1878, 2i–3v; Fenner, History of Fall River, 36–37. Union and Sagamore mills had to be reorganized, as did those of Mount Top. On the other hand, Tecumseh and Davol each reduced capital. Durfee Mills and Fall River Manufactory escaped reorganization, but their large stockholders were replaced.

42 “While the other cities have grown from within, receiving but little foreign capita] for the development of existing industries or the introduction of new ones.” Fall River Weekly News, 8 Oct. 1890, 2iv–v. Also see Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 66; Sanford and Kelley, Fall River: Statistics relating to its Cotton Manufacturing Corporations for the year 1898, 26.

43 The articles of association of a company usually described the agent's payment in such terms as, “they shall receive a commission of a quarter of an Anna per pound of all material manufactured and sold by the company.” (An anna equaled one-sixteenth of a rupee.) Regarding Coorla Spinning & Weaving Co., registered in 1874, for example, see Company File No. 74, Company Registration Office of Bombay.

44 The Times of India, 15 Aug. 1876, 3; The Times of India: Calendar and Bombay Directory (1873), 199; (1884), 436ff; The Times of India, 6 Aug. 1889, 6i; The Indian Textile Journal (July 1891), 167; (Nov. 1892), 24; (March 1895), 134–46; (Feb. 1895), 115; Rutnagur, Bombay Industries, 10–14, 37.

45 The Sassoon business group was an exception; five companies belonging to the group amalgamated to form the E. D. Sassoon United Mills in 1920. The Indian Textile Journal (April 1920), 130.

46 Peck and Earl, Fall River and Its Industries, 143–44, 110; Oldham Chronicle, 15 March 1884; 14 April 1888.

47 With regard to the history of Japanese cotton spinning companies, see the following works: Kinugawa, T., Honpō Menshi Bōseki Shi (A History of Cotton Spinning in Japan), 7 vols. (1936–1943)Google Scholar; Yamaguchi, Kazuo, ed., Nippon Sangyō Kinyū Shi Kenkyū: Boseki Kinyū Hen (A History of Industrial Finance in Japan: Finance in Spinning Companies) (1970)Google Scholar; Takamura, Naosuke, Nippon Bōseki-gyō Shi Jyosetsu (Introduction to the History of the Japanese Spinning Industry), 2 vols. (1971)Google Scholar.

It is very difficult to discover exactly when the firms were legally organized because only partial records exist. My calculation was based on Shinpō and Honpō Menshi Bōseki-gyō Shi.

48 Chugai Bukka Shinpō (a commercial newspaper), 10 Feb. 1887, li–ii; Jiji Shinpō (a daily newspaper), 22 Feb. 1887, 2v; Kinugawa, Honpō Menshi Bōseki Shi (1937), 2: 535ff; Chugai Shōgyō Shinpō, 26 Nov. 1889, li–ii.

49 Chugai Shōgyō Shinpō, 2 July 1886, liv; 27 April 1887, li–ii.

50 Nippon Keizai Tōkei Sōran (Comprehensive Economic Statistics of Japan) (1930), 252, 1108.

51 The Bank of Japan's rate decreased from 7 percent to 5.5 percent in 1885–87. Compiled from Chūgai Bukka Shinpō and Nippon Keizai Tōkei Sōran, Chūgai Bukka Shinpō, 8 Dec. 1886, 1.

52 The Osaka Spinning Company was also innovative in that it was equipped with electric light in 1885, and then operated night and day. Accordingly, it had a strong influence on following firms. Latecomers often sent their mill workers to successful companies for training in their jobs.

53 A typical case is the Kanegafuchi Spinning Company, the founders of which were composed of cotton merchants engaged in importing Chinese cotton. They afterwards decided to operate spinning mills themselves. No more than a decade after the establishment of the first machine spinning mill in Japan, mill managers or engineers had become very scarce in number, and none of them were so rich that they could be initiators.

54 About a decade after the boom years, an amalgamation movement started. The number of spinning firms reached 79 in the peak year of 1900, but declined to only 34 in 1911.

55 Yamaguchi, Nippon Sangyō Kinyū Shi Kenkyū, 36–37; Tokyo Kabushiki Torihiki-jo Shi (A History of the Tokyo Stock Exchange) (1916), 119–33Google Scholar; Ōkabu Gojūnen Shi (Fifty Years of the Osaka Stock Exchange) (1928)Google Scholar, Appendix, 7ff; Yamaguehi, Nippon Sangyō Kinyū Shi Kenkyū, 329, 406, 462–63 402–5; Takamura, Nippon Bōseki-gyō Shi Jyosetsu, 1: 257–64.

56 During the three years 1880–90, sixty-six firms organized in the Oldham district before the end of the boom years paid an average annual dividend of 3.29 percent, 3.69 percent, and 5.67 percent. In Fall River, twenty-five listed firms founded before the end of the year 1872 attained better but still ordinary results, paying dividends of 7.51 percent, 8.21 percent, and 5.29 percent, respectively, during the same years. Twenty-one Indian firms founded before the end of the boom did not pay more than moderate dividends of 6.87 percent, 6.45 percent, and 5.49 percent in each of the three years 1887–89. In contrast, Japanese firms paid 6.7 percent, 13.3 percent, and 13.3 percent on average in the three years of 1891–93. The figure for Oldham was calculated from “Our Limited Companies” in the Oldham Chronicle, 27 Dee. 1890, 3vii. These firms include a few companies outside the Oldham district. Other figures were based on the following records: Fall River Weekly News, 4 Oct. 1890, 2vi; 21 Nov. 1889, 2vi; 18 Nov. 1890, 2vii. The year's dividends of listed companies in Fall River were first reported in 1888. The Indian figure was calculated on the basis of the list of stock prices in The Times of India; for Japan, see Nōshomushō (Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce), Nippon Menshi Bōseki-gyō Enkaku Kiji (The Development of the Cotton Spinning Industry in Japan) (c. 1902), 61–62Google Scholar. See also Shin'ichi Yonekawa, “The Growth of Cotton Spinning Firms: A Comparative Study,” in The Textile Industry and Its Business Climate, 1–38.