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A very British institution! A study in under-capitalisation: the role of the Ship Mortgage Finance Company in post-delivery credit financing within shipbuilding, 1951–671

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

L. Johnman  and
H. Murphy
L. Johnman
Affiliation:
University of Westminster
H. Murphy
Affiliation:
National Maritime Museum
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Type
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Information
Financial History Review , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , October 1999 , pp. 203 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © European Association for Banking and Financial History 1999

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References

2 For the managerial failure approach, see Slaven, A., ‘Marketing opportunities and marketing practices: the eclipse of British shipbuilding, 1957–1976’, in Fischer, L. R. (ed.), From Wheel House to Counting House: Essays in Honour of Professor Peter Neville Davies (St Johns, 1992)Google Scholar. The institutional approach is best exemplified by Lorenz, E. H., Economic Decline in Britain: The Shipbuilding Industry, 1890–1970 (Oxford, 1991).Google Scholar

3 Committee on Finance and Industry [Macmillan], Report, Cmd 3897 (1931), pp. 173–4.Google Scholar

4 Hannah, L., The Rise of the Corporate Economy (London, 1976), p. 75.Google Scholar

5 Garside, W. R., British Unemployment 1919–1939: A Study in Public Policy (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 258–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Johnman, L., ‘The Labour Party and industrial policy, 1940–1945’, in Tiratsoo, N. (ed.), The Attlee Years (London, 1991), p. 31.Google Scholar

7 See ibid., pp. 29–53; H. Mercer, ‘The Labour governments of 1945–51 and private industry’, in Tiratsoo, Attlee Years; and Middlemass, K., Power, Competition and the State, 1, Britain in Search of Balance, 1940–61 (London, 1986), pp. 46–111.Google Scholar

8 Public Record Office, Kew [hereafter PRO]: Cabinet [hereafter CAB] 27/190, Report of the Cabinet Committee on Unemployment; and CAB 27/196 (CU) 651–700, memos, Feb. to Sep., 1924.

9 PRO: CAB 27/197 (CU) 712, Assistance to Shipping, report by Chadwick, R. B., 2 Dec. 1924.Google Scholar

10 On the RMSP collapse, see Green, E. and Moss, M., A Business of National Importance: The Royal Mail Shipping Group, 1902–1937 (London, 1982).Google Scholar For the attitude of government and others, see PRO: CAB 27/557, Cabinet Committee on the British Mercantile Marine, meetings and memos, 1933–34.

11 PRO: Ministry of Transport [MT] 9/2737, British Shipping (Assistance) Bill explanatory memos, 1935; MT 9/2765, Assistance to British Shipping: memos and White Paper, 1934–39; and MT 9/2766 and 9/2767, Scrap and Build Programme; applications under Part II of the British Shipping (Assistance) Act, 1935–37.

12 PRO: CAB 24/284 (CP 67), Shipping and Shipbuilding, proposals for financial assistance arising from committee report, 17 Mar. 1939.

13 On this, see Johnman, L. and Murphy, H., ‘The Norwegian market for British shipbuilding, 1945–1967’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 46 (1998).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 PRO: Treasury [T] 236/2129 Norway, review of Dec. 1948 agreement covering trade and payments. Memo, Dennis, M. W. to Mr Serpell, 31 05 1949.Google Scholar

15 Johnman, L., ‘The shipbuilding industry’, in Mercer, H., Rollings, N. and Tomlinson, J. (eds), Labour Goverments and Private Industry (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 198–200.Google Scholar

16 Fairplay (11 01 1951).Google Scholar

17 ibid., telegram, Sir L. Collier, Oslo, to Foreign Office, London, 25 Jun. 1949 and telegram from Foreign Office to Oslo, 28 Jun. 1949.

18 Companies House, London; Company No. 493234. Accounts and Annual Reports of Ship Mortgage Finance Company, Ltd, 1951–69 [hereafter SMFC, A & AR].

19 ibid.

20 Lord Piercy's private papers are held at t he London School of Economics [hereafter LSE; PP ICFC]. Piercy was the first chairman of ICFC and an original director of SMFC. He became chairman of the latter on the death of Sir James Milne in 1958. On ICFC, cf. Coopey, R. and Clarke, D., 3i: Fifty Years of Investing in Industry (Oxford, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Coopey, R.. ‘The first venture capitalist: financing development in Britain after 1945. The case of ICFC/3i’, Business and Economic History, 23 (1994).Google Scholar

21 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/199 SMFC, memo for Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee, submitted by Piercy on behalf of SMFC, Nov. 1965.

22 ibid.; and SMFC, A & AR.

23 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/195 SMFC foreign business. Notes of conversations with Foreign Exchange Control, 7 Jun. 1951.

24 ibid.

25 ibid.

26 ibid.

27 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/195 SMFC, talk with Sir George Bolton at the Bank, 25 Jun. 1951.

28 ibid., conversation with the Governor, 28 Jun. 1951.

29 ibid., personal letter to Sir W. A. Eady, 29 Jun. 1951.

30 For the purposes of the Act, the Scheduled Territories were: the British Commonwealth (except Canada), the Irish Republic, British Trust Territories, British Protectorates and Protected States, Burma, Iraq, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Libya.

31 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/195, letter, Sir Amos Ayre, chairman of Shipbuilding Conference, to Piercy, 6 Jul. 1951.

32 ibid., letter, Pearce (Bank of England) to O'Donovan (Treasury), 3 Jul. 1951.

33 PRO: T236/2129, minutes, 53rd meeting of the Cabinet Overseas Negotiating Committee. ON (49), 28 Jun. 1949.

34 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/159, letter, Pearce to O'Donovan, 3 Jul. 1951.

35 ibid., letter, Piercy to Sir Charles Connell, 7 Mar. 1951.

36 ibid., letter, Sir Charles Connell to Piercy, 10 Mar. 1951.

37 ibid., letter, Sir James Milne to Secretary of the Treasury, 9 Apr. 1951.

38 ibid.

39 ibid., letter, Sir James Milne to Secretary of the Treasury, 22 May 1952.

40 ibid.

41 ibid.

42 ibid., note, informal and confidential talk with Mr Compton and Mr Trend at the Treasury, 11 Jun. 1952.

43 ibid., letter, Secretary of the Treasury to secretary, SMFC, 5 Jul. 1952.

44 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statement, 1952.

45 LSE: PP, ICFC 9/195, memo by Wreford, P. G. to SMFC chairman and general manager, 15 01 1953.Google Scholar

46 Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Shipbuilding Returns, 1st Quarter, 1953.Google Scholar

47 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statements, 1953, 1954 and 1955.

48 Stokes, P., Ship Finance: Credit Expansion and the Boom-Bust Cycle (London, 1992), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

49 Sir Frederick Rebbeck, quoted in the Financial Times (12 11 1953).Google Scholar

50 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statement, AGM, 24 Nov. 1953.

51 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/196, translated extract from Gothenburg Journal of Shipping and Commerce (8 07 1953).Google Scholar

52 ibid., note by Piercy, 1 Jun. 1953.

53 ibid., memo from P. G. Wreford to chairman and general manager, 15 Jan. 1953; and note from the secretary, 24 Mar. 1953.

54 ibid., The Shipbuilding Conference, AGM, 7 Oct. 1953.

55 ibid., memo from P. G. Wreford to t he chairman, 9 Oct. 1953.

56 ibid., letter from the Shipbuilding Conference to Economic Secretary to the Treasury, R. Maudling, 26 Nov. 1953.

57 For Shipbuilding Conference's attempts to marshall such evidence, see National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association [hereafter, NMM; SRNA]: Papers, 8/F1/9 Foreign Competition: Norway 1953–1977.

58 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statement, AGM, 30 Oct. 1956.

59 Kinross, J. B., Fifty Years in the City (London, 1982), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

60 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statement, AGM, 2 Sep. 1960.

61 NMM: SRNA 50/1/14, State of the Industry and Reports on Foreign Countries, 1956–1963, executive meeting, 1962.

62 PRO: Board of Trade [henceforth BT], 291/1 Economic Policy Committee, meetings, Oct-Nov. 1962.

63 PRO: BT 291/141, Interdepartmental Committee on Contraction of the Shipbuilding Industry, note of first meeting, 13 Nov. 1962.

64 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statement, 1 Oct. 1962.

65 ibid., chairman's statement, 30 Sep. 1963.

66 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/199, memo for the Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee submitted by Piercy on SMFC's behalf, Nov. 1965.

67 SMFC, A & AR, chairman's statement, 2 Aug. 1965.

68 Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee 1965–1966, Report, Cmnd. 2937, 1966, pp. 141–3, 148–9.Google Scholar

69 Kinross, , Fifty Years, p. 196.Google Scholar

70 LSE: PP ICFC, 9/199, articles by Piercy on ‘Shipbuilding finance’ and ‘Improved financing for British-built ships’, no dates, but 1965.

71 ibid., memo for Shipbuilding Inquiry Committee submitted by Piercy on SMFC's behalf, Nov. 1965.