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Language and Culture in a Liverpool Merchant Family Firm, 1870–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2011

Gordon Boyce
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Abstract

Ethnographic methods are applied to this investigation of the links between language and business culture found in letters exchanged in the 1880s, 1900s, 1930s, and 1940s among members of a long-lived family-owned business. The letters are contained in three sets of correspondence between three different generations of the Bates family, who were merchants, shipowners, and private bankers based in Liverpool. The aim is to develop a different perspective from which to consider communicating processes, business culture, social mobility, and the socialization of managers. The study invites consideration of the appropriateness of accepted behavioral assumptions attributed to economic actors and the significance of judgment and instinct in decision-making.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Harvard Business School 2010

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References

1 Aldcroft, D.H., The Development of British Industry and Foreign Competition, 1875–1914 (London, 1968)Google Scholar, Chandler, Alfred D. Jr, Scale and Scope (Cambridge, Mass., 1990)Google Scholar; Wiener, Martin, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850–1980 (Cambridge, U.K., 1981).Google Scholar Also, Jones, Geoffrey, From Merchants to Multinationals (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; and Jones, Geoffrey and Rose, Mary, eds., Family Capitalism (London, 1993).Google Scholar

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5 Casson, Information and Organisations.

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10 Sampling supported comparison with letters analyzed by other scholars in terms of formality, purpose, and content. Sample sizes of 100 were developed by taking groups of 15–20 letters from every volume in each series: 1) BAT1/1–6 (6 vols.); 2a) BAT2/1–8 and 2b) D641/4/62; and 3a) D42/56/3/1 and 3b) D641/2/73. The same procedure was used for the control samples: 1) BAT3/1, 2) P&O12/1; and 3) D641/3/2. All BAT and P&O collections are held at the Caird Library, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, while the D42 and D641 series are located at the University of Liverpool, Department of Special Collections and Archives. Denis and Sir Percy Bates's diaries are held at the latter site (D641/3/48 and D641/2/8).

11 Cannadine, David, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (London, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perkin, Harold, The Origins of Modern English Society (London, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Cain, & Hopkins, , “Gentlemanly Capitalism,” 508.Google Scholar

13 Rowson, A. H., “Edward Bates-Shipowner,” in Bates, Philip, The Bates of Bellefield, Gryn Castle, and Manydown (Liverpool, 1994), 5.Google Scholar

14 Milne, Graeme J., Trade and Traders in mid-Victorian Liverpool (Liverpool, 2000), 133–4, 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rowson, , “Edward Bates,” 15–17.Google Scholar

15 Burke's Peerage.

16 Ibid.

17 Hyde, F. E., Shipping Enterprise and Management, 1830–1939: Harrisons of Liverpool (Liverpool, 1967), 99Google Scholar; and Davies, P. N., The Trademakers: Elder Dempster in West Africa, 1852–1972, 1973–1989 (St. John's, 2000), 414.Google Scholar

18 Milne, , Trade and Traders, 152–61.Google Scholar

19 Boyce, , Information, 76–95.Google Scholar The Johnstons were a notable exception (Furness Withy & Co., Legal records).

20 Hyde, , Cunard and the North Atlantic, 137–48, 166Google Scholar; Vale, Vivian, The American Peril (Manchester, 1984)Google Scholar; Boyce, , Information, 99–104.Google Scholar By 1919, Cunard had acquired eight subsidiaries and ran a fleet of over 558,000 grt., making it one of Britain's five largest shipping groups. Boyce, , Information, 128.Google Scholar

21 University of Liverpool archives, D641/2/73, and D641/3/48 (Denis's Diary) 30 Oct. 1947, 28 July 1948, 5 Mar. 1949, and 15 Feb. 1952.

22 Frye, Margot, Tom's Letters (Wellington, 2001) andGoogle ScholarHanna, M., “A Republic of Letters: The Epistolary Tradition in France during World War I,” American Historical Review 108, no. 5 (2003): 1338–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Dear Sir, We beg to make to you the following communication…. We have for some time past observed with considerable anxiety the rapidly growing increase in the Com pany's expenditure … and also a decrease in its receipts…. Looking at these facts we feel it to be imperative on the principal employees of the Company to endeavour by every means in their power to avert the very serious consequences of these drawbacks on its continued prosperity…. We are, Dear Sir, Yours truly, Moswell [P&O/12/1, Moswell to Paterson, 10 Jan. 1867].

24 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 23 Apr. 1901.

25 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 26 Nov. 1901.

26 BAT1/4, Tom to Edward, 2 July 1881.

27 BAT2/5, Bertie to Uncle Tom, 16 June 1900.

28 BAT1/6, Tom to Papa, 5 Nov. 1883

29 BAT1/4, Tom to Papa, 7 July 1881.

30 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 26 Nov. 1901.

31 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie 22 Apr. 1901.

32 BAT1/5, Tom to Syd, 30 May 1883.

33 BAT1/3, Ted to Syd, 29 Jan. 1880.

34 Based on letters in Furness Withy, John Swire, James Nourse, Sir Walter Runciman, and Frank Strick collections.

35 BAT1/6, Gilbert to Papa, 9 Nov. 1883.

36 BAT2/3, Bertie to Father, 17 July 1899; and Bertie to Tom, 17 July and 7 Sept. 1899.

37 D641/3/2, Denis to Fred 18, 25 Oct. 1907. Thus, Cecil recommended shooting all of the family's dogs that contracted distemper.

38 D641/4/62, Tom to Bertie, 22 Apr. 1901 and 25 Aug. 1902.

39 BAT2/5, Bertie to Tom 16 June 1900; BAT2/8, Bertie to Syd, 15 Apr. 1902, 276; and BAT2/3, Bertie to Tom 7 Sept. 1899.

40 BAT2/6, Bertie to Uncle Tom, 3 Dec. 1900.

41 D42/S3.49, Percy to Fred, 26 Aug. 1940.

42 D642/S3/49, Percy to Fred, 26 Apr. 1940.

43 D42/57/3/1, Frederick to Percy, 3 Jan. 1938.

44 BAT1/4, Ted to Papa, 29 June 1881.

45 BAT1/6, Ted to Syd, 3 July 1884.

46 BAT1/5, Tom to Ted, 1 June 1883.

47 BAT1/3, Ted to Syd, 4 Feb. 1880; and BAT1/4, Ted to Papa, 30 June 1881, 4 and 5 July 1881.

48 BAT1/3, Ted to Syd, 30 Jan. 1880.

49 BAT1/4, Tom to Papa copied to Ted with additional comment, 25 and 27 June 1881.

50 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 26 Nov. 1901.

51 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 22 Apr. 1901; Boyce, “Network Knowledge and Network Routines.”

52 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 22 Apr. 1901.

53 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 7 Mar. 1901.

54 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 20 Apr. 1901.

55 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 20 Aug. 1902.

56 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 24 Apr. 1901.

57 BAT/2/7, Bertie to Uncle Tom, 8 Mar. 1901.

58 D42/S3.49 Percy to Fred, 27 Mar. 1939.

59 D42/56/3/1 Fred to Percy, 10 Feb. 1936.

60 D42/56/3/1, Fred to Percy, 13 June 1932.

61 D42/56/3/1, Percy to Fred, 15 Oct. 1932.

62 BAT1/4, 2 July 1881, Tom to Ted.

63 BAT2/1, Bertie to Father, 4 July 1898.

64 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Bertie, 3 Mar. and 5 Apr. 1900.

65 D641/4/62, Gilbert T. Bates to Percy, 9 Mar. 1903.

66 D641/2/48, 7 May 1945.

67 D641/3/48, 16 Oct. 1946. Denis was appalled by the appointment of Philip Runciman to the presidency of the General Council of British Shipping, an event that apparently “reinstated [him] with ‘honour’” after the family had sold its firm at the peak of the 1919 boom “to the widows orphans + clergy” and repurchased the vessels when the concern was bankrupted the following year. “Such action would appear to mean that the Ship Owning fraternity approves of such conduct….” The contrast between Runciman's practices, which displayed no sense of trusteeship and undermined the reputation of the shipping community, contrasted sharply with the “integrity + service” of Sir Percy. 12 Jan. 1942.

68 D641/3/48,11 May 1946.

69 D641/3/48, 31 Dec. 1946.

70 D641/3/48, 28 July 1947, 25 Dec. 1948, and 25 Dec. 1949.