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Personal Capitalism and British Industrial Decline: The Personally Managed Firm and Business Strategy in Sheffield, 1880–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Roger Lloyd-Jones  and
Myrddin J. Lewis
Roger Lloyd-Jones
Affiliation:
Roger Lloyd-Jones is principal lecturer in modern business history and subject leader of the History Group atSheffield Hallam University
Myrddin J. Lewis
Affiliation:
Myrddin J. Lewis is senior lecturer in business history and history and computing atSheffield Hallam University
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Extract

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., has maintained that the persistence of the personally managed firm in Britain may be a cause of that nation's long-run industrial decline. This article contributes to the debate over decline through a detailed exploration of the business role of personally managed firms in a strategic sector of the Second Industrial Revolution: the metal and metal-making trades of Sheffield. Our study shows that the business strategies of Sheffield firms, based on quality production and flexible technology, had close similarities to those of American companies described by scholars such as Philip Scranton. Many of the Sheffield firms were not lacking in enterprise; they demonstrated tenacity and, in certain key segments of the metal trades, enjoyed a high degree of business success. Our examination of personal capitalism in Sheffield suggests that the terms of the debate over Britain's industrial decline may require further refinement.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1994 , pp. 364 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1994

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21 Coleman, “Failings and Achievements,” 2.

22 Payne, “Family Business,” 171.

23 The use of rateable values as a proxy of size is a well-established procedure. See Lloyd-Jones, Roger and Lewis, M. J., Manchester and the Age of the Factory: The Business Structure of Cottonopolis in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1988), chap. 3Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, and Lewis, , “Industrial Structure and Firm Growth: The Sheffield Iron and Steel Industry, 1880–1901,” Business History 25 (1983): 261–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. G. Timmins, “Concentration and Integration in the Sheffield Crucible Steel Industry,” ibid. 24 (1982). “Rateable values” reflect a local tax placed on a property asset (factory, warehouse, residential house, etc.) based on a valuation of the property undertaken by the local authority (town or county council).

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33 Allen to Woodward, 27 March 1908, ibid.

34 Similar observations could be made about a number of family firms in Britain. For example, Coleman, “Failings and Achievements,” 2, observes, “In the family glass making firm of Pilkingtons management and organisation had changed little since the nineteenth century; those outside the family were given only limited rights to determine policy.”

35 Tweedale, “Business and Technology,” 162, 163; Lloyd-Jones and Lewis, “Business Structure and Political Economy,” 232.

36 Beckett to Wostenholm's, 23 June 1893, Journey Reports of Edward Beckett in the United States, Records of George Wostenholm & Co. (Wos R 12e), Sheffield Archives.

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39 Ibid.

40 Spear & Jackson to Surveyor of Taxes, Sheffield, 9 May, 3 July 1906; General Profit and Loss Account, 31 Dec. 1912, all from Records of Spear & Jackson (SJC 69), Sheffield Archives; American Machinist 36 (1912): 33EGoogle Scholar; Lewis, “Growth and Development,” 290.

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44 Spear & Jackson to H. M. Howe (Durban), 14 May 1906, Records of Spear & Jackson (SJC 69).

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46 Robert Woodward to William Edgar Allen, 7 March 1908, Records of Edgar Allen (Aurora 541b). In the production of rails in the United States, there was considerable tension between the large integrated steel-manufacturing firms and their customers the railway companies. Thus, Charles Dudley, the chief chemist of the Pennsylvania Railroad, claimed bitterly in 1908 that the large manufacturers were ignoring the need of customers for quality output. Knoedler, Janet, “Market Structure, Industrial Research, and Consumers of Innovation: Forging Backward Linkages to Research in the Turn-of-theCentury U.S Steel Industry,” Business History Review 67 (Spring 1993): 128CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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50 The rising importance of London and the Southeast as the most rapidly growing economic region in the late nineteenth century is examined by Lee, C. H., “Regenerated Growth and Structural Change in Victorian Britain,” Economic History Review 34 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The firm of Spear & Jackson was also targeting the London market for the sale of special tool steel. See Spear & Jackson to J. B. Caryesford (London agent), 10 Jan. 1907, Spear & Jackson Records (SJC 69); Joseph Beardshaw, Minute Books, entries for 28 Sept. 1894, and 20 Dec. 1895; Monthly Report of H. Spear, 20 March 1899; Monthly Report 28 Aug. 1903, Records of Joseph Beardshaw (MD 7081 5).

51 Monthly Report, 27 Aug. 1897, ibid.; Baltic Steel Works Gazette (1923), ii.

52 Monthly Report of H. Spear, 29 July 1900, Records of Joseph Beardshaw (MD 7081 5). After 1900 the company developed high-speed steel for machine tools; see “A Family Business for Over 200 Years,” 57–60.

53 Baltic Steel Works Gazette (1923), 40. Family recruitment to sales positions was common practice. Thus, the directors of Spear & Jackson appointed D. Jackson Haggie, the grandson of the firm's founder, as deputy in the London office. He had been entirely engaged in the business since leaving school, being trained in the various departments of the works. His technical experience was invaluable in “endeavouring to open up new customers.” Spear & Jackson to P. Robinson, Sydney, 12 May 1911, Records of Spear & Jackson (SJC 69).

54 Letter Books, Miscellaneous Notes (n.d.), Records of Burgon & Ball (B & B 69), Sheffield Archives; “Index to the Records of Burgon & Ball,” Sheffield Archives; “Burgon & Ball Ltd.,” Quality of Sheffield (Sheffield, July 1977), 77Google Scholar; Taylor, “Cutlery Trades,” 194–210.

55 J. Swire & Co. (Liverpool) to Burgon & Ball, 1 Nov. 1871, Records of Burgon & Ball (B & B 68). This factor was recognized by the American Machinist 28 (1905): 746Google Scholar, which commented on the opportunities for small firms “who know the importance of using the best tools and of putting into the finished product the best practically obtainable material.”

56 Letters from Frederick to William Burgon, 28 Aug. 1887, Records of Burgon & Ball (B & B 70A). Scranton, “Diversity in Diversity,” 34, also shows that batch specialists in the United States developed the “capacity to create a wide range of intermediate or final goods” and pursued a “strategy of amassing sufficient lumps of diverse demand to keep the works going or expanding.”

57 Letters from Frederick to William Burgon, 15 April 1887 and 10 July 1887, Records of Burgon & Ball (B & B 70A). A similar marketing philosophy to meet American competition in Australia was adopted by two other Sheffield firms, Christopher Johnson's and Cooper Bros. See, for example, Christopher Johnson & Co. to William Cowlinshaw (Brisbane), 5 Sept. 1890, where the management comments on its success in combating American competition in files and edge tools by “maintaining a uniform system of quality.” Records of Christopher Johnson (MD 2374), Sheffield Archives. For Cooper Bros., see Letter Book 1883–1912, Records of Cooper Bros. (499/B), Sheffield Archives. When Burgon & Ball became a limited company in 1898, Daniel Doncaster's held 8,160 of Burgon & Ball, Ltd.'s £1 preference shares out of a total allocation of 20,000. Minutes of Burgon & Ball, Ltd., 1894–1915, 13 July 1898, Burgon & Ball Records (B & B 16).

58 Frederick Burgon to William Burgon, 25 July 1887; 6 and 28 Jan. 1888, Records of Burgon & Ball (B & B 70A).

59 Ibid., 11 Aug. 1887.

60 Ibid., 6 Jan. 1888; Quality of Sheffield, 77.

61 Soltow, “Origins of Small Business,” in Transactions, 27.

62 “Index of Burgon & Ball Records.”

63 Blackford, “Small Business in America,” 26.

64 Storper and Christopherson, “Flexible Specialization,” 105.

65 Scranton, “The Bromleys,” 115.

66 Piore and Sabel, Second Industrial Divide, 28–29, 104.

67 Scranton, “Diversity in Diversity,” 38.

68 Storper and Christopherson, “Flexible Specialization,” 105.

69 Scranton, “Diversity in Diversity,” 36.

70 Piore and Sabel, Second Industrial Divide, 311.

71 Pollard, A History of Labour, 50.

72 Lewis, “Growth and Development,” 139; Taylor, “Cutlery Trades,” 200.

73 Edward Beckett to Wostenholm's, 1 and 23 June 1893, Journey Reports of Edward Beckett in the United States, Records of Wostenholm's (Wos R 12e).

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76 Taylor, “Cutlery Trades,” 202.

77 American Machinist 29 (1905): 114EGoogle Scholar. See also Tweedale, “Business and Technology,” 160–62; Letter from Jonas & Colver (steel manufacturers) to Sheffield Chamber, 3 May 1900, Records of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce (LD 1986 [5]). Taylor, “Cutlery Trades,” 201–2, has observed that “Overall demand… was subject to wide, often unpredictable, seasonal and cyclical fluctuations.”

78 Monthly Report of H. Spear, 20 Oct. 1897 (negotiations for special lines in saws for the London retail trade); 24 June 1898 (negotiations with the India Office for band saws); 30 June 1899 (order from Royal Arsenal for a special mix of steel), Records of Joseph Beardshaw (MD 7081 5); American Machinist 36 (1912): 133EGoogle Scholar. One of the advantages of this system was that “the results of tests can be stated definitely to workmen” and modifications effected.

79 Memo, by Robert A. Hadfield, 28 April 1885; Robert A. Hadfield to J. D. Weeks (editor of the Pittsburgh publication The American Manufacturer), 29 May 1884; both from Hadfield Records (Hadfields 165), Sheffield Archives. Employment figures are from Tweedale, “Business and Technology,” 162.

80 Quoted in Lewis, “Growth and Development,” 149.

81 Memo, on Project for Laying Down Hot and Cold Rolling Plant, Jan. 1896, Records of Marsh Bros. (Marsh 105), Sheffield Archives; Pollard, Three Centuries of Sheffield Steel, 47.

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89 “A family Business for Over 200 Years,” 57. Similarly, the management of John Kenyon's “value character and long service, and preserve those old ideals by force of which the workman himself feels his interests to be identical with those of his master.” Kenyon & Co. Bi-Centenary, 12.

90 David Brody, “Labor and Small-Scale Enterprise during Industrialization,” in Small Business in American Life, ed. Bruchey, 265.

91 Taylor, “Cutlery Trades,” 194–95.

92 Ibid., 208. As the management of the cutlery firm of Needham, Veal, & Tyzack commented: they had “no control over the hiring of outworkers, and “there shall be no undue preference given to them in the way of work.” Letter to A. Fretwell, 8 May 1893, Minute Book, Records of Needham, Veal, & Tyzack (NVT 8), Sheffield Archives.

93 British Parliamentary Papers, Departmental Committee on the Truck Acts (Cmd. 4444, 1907), 952.

94 Taylor, “Cutlery Trades,” 209.

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98 Beckett to Wostenholm's, 23 Jan. 1896, Journey Reports of Edward Beckett in the United States, Records of Wostenholm's (Wos R 3).

99 Complaints by Sheffield firms to the Chamber against false marking by German companies producing for the American market were widespread. See, for example, 7 Nov. 1900, Records of Chamber of Commerce (LD 1986 [5]). Lewis, “Growth and Development,” 200; Pollard, A History of Labour, 138.

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101 See Lloyd-Jones and Lewis, “Business Structure and Political Economy,” 211–33. The commitment to quality was also supported by the trade unions in Sheffield, “whose campaign for the prosecution of trade frauds has had some success.” Pollard, A History of Labour, 138.

102 Sheffield Independent, 3 Feb. 1906. Bedford was a partner in the medium-sized tool and cutlery firm of J. Bedford & Sons.

103 Scranton, “Diversity in Diversity,” 27–28.

104 Pollard, A History of Labour, 332–34.

105 Tweedale, “Business and Technology,” 158, 161.

106 Ibid., 158. Scranton, “Diversity in Diversity,” 28–29, has also argued that “With less fanfare, other [non-Chandlerian] American companies had created an extensive capacity in trades where product character and quality were keys to capturing sales, even as products (and demand for them) changed readily.”

107 Tweedale, Sheffield Steel and America, 101.

108 American Machinist 36 (1912): 20EGoogle Scholar.

109 Supple, “Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism,” 506, quoting Chandler, Scale and Scope, 237.

110 Lloyd-Jones and Lewis, “Business Structure and Political Economy,” 229–31. See also Tolliday, Steven, “Steel and Rationalisation Policies, 1916–1934: The Politics of Industrial Decline,” in Businessmen and Politics, ed. Turner, J. (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

111 Nenadic, Stana, “The Small Family Firm in Victorian Britain,” Business History 35 (Oct. 1993): 88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112 Lewis, “Growth and Development,” 245, 249. The act did cover tungsten and magnets. Capie, Forrest, Depression and Protection: Britain between the Wars (London, 1983), 41Google Scholar.

113 A New York Times headline said that Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill's announcement of the return to gold had carried “Parliament and nation to the heights of enthusiasm.” Quoted in Galbraith, John Kenneth, The World Economy since the War (London, 1994), 58Google Scholar.

114 Balfour quoted in Lewis, “Growth and Development,” 251; Tomlinson, Jim, Public Policy and the Economy since 1900 (Oxford, England, 1990), 75Google Scholar.

115 For an interesting discussion on British decline, see Pollard, Sidney, Britain's Prime and Britain's Decline: The British Economy, 1870–1914 (London, 1989Google Scholar).

116 Supple, “Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism,” 511.

117 Achievement 38, no. 1 (1971, published in the U.S.), special edition on Sheffield, 16, 31Google Scholar.

118 Scott and Storper, Production, Work, Territory, 10.

119 Piore and Sabel, Second Industrial Divide, 209–11; Reutter, Mark, Sparrows Point: Making Steel (New York, 1989), 422, 431Google Scholar.

120 Ingham, Making Iron and Steel, 84.