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Note: Size and Profitability of English Colliers in the Eighteenth Century—A Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Simon Ville
Simon Ville
Affiliation:
Simon Ville is lecturer in economic history at theUniversity of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.
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Abstract

In this note, Dr. Ville expands upon an analysis of the English coal trade in the eighteenth century made by William J. Hausman in the Winter 1977 issue of the Business History Review. Drawing upon the recently discovered papers of Michael Henley and Son, London shipowners between 1775 and 1830, Ville contends that Hausman underestimated both the underlying level of the trade's profitability and its highly volatile nature. Central to Ville's argument is his claim that the high degree of vertical integration in the coal trade pushed up profit levels. These high profits, Ville suggests, played an important role in British industrialization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , Spring 1984 , pp. 103 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1984

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References

1 Hausman, William J., “Size and Profitability of English Colliers in the Eighteenth Century,” Business History Review 51 (1977): 460–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 In 1972 the Henley Collection was presented to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich by Captain J.A.C. Henley RN. The papers were contained in 116 wooden boxes and were discovered at Waterperry House in Oxford. The condition and extent of the papers has necessitated a large cataloguing task that is now nearing completion. I would like to thank Roger Knight and Ann Currie for their considerable assistance and for allowing me to work on the collection at this early stage. I would also like to thank Robin Craig for initially directing me toward the papers and for offering continual advice and encouragement. Since the collection is still in the process of being catalogued, reference numbers to specific documents cannot be given.

3 Also see Hausman, W. J., Public Policy and the Supply of Coal to London, 1700–1770 (New York, 1981).Google Scholar

4 Although his profit estimates are based upon an assumption of eight or nine voyages per annum, the impression conveyed by the paper is that even vessels continuously deployed in the London coal trade were rarely able to reach this figure.

5 Kept by the Corporation of London Record Office at the Guildhall.

6 Atcheson, Nathaniel, A letter addressed to Rowland Burdon Esquire MP on the Present State of the Carrying Part of the Coal Trade (London, 1802), p. 10Google Scholar, contains the following figures:

7 Marine Insurance Clubs were often set up by groups of shipowners themselves. Each owner paid an agreed annual sum, according to the characteristics of his vessel, in return for constant insurance. To avoid high risks, some restrictions were made on a vessel's deployment.

8 Davis, Ralph, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1962), 194–96.Google Scholar Here Davis spoke of “timidity and conservatism” and “a rigidity of mind which saw a vessel committed to one function,” although he does say that there was more switching between trades in the short coastal and sea voyages.

9 For the complete deployment of this vessel during its forty years' life see Ville, Simon, “Wages, Prices and Profitability in the Shipping Industry During the Napoleonic Wars: A Case Study” Journal of Transport History, 3d ser. (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 On the Vend see Sweezy, P. M., Monopoly and Competition in the English Coal Trade, 1550–1850 (Cambridge, Mass., 1938)Google Scholar, Chaps. 5–12; Ashton, T. S. and Sykes, J., The Coal Industry of the Eighteenth Century (Manchester, 1929), Chap. 13Google Scholar; Smith, R., Sea Coal for London (London, 1961), Chaps. 19–21.Google Scholar

11 The Late Measures of the Ship Owners In the Coal Trade (London, 1786), 8, 24Google Scholar.

12 Report of the Select Committee for the Best Mode of Providing Accommodation for the Increased Trade and Shipping of the Port of London, 1796. House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, 102.

13 On the problems of tonnage measurement see a series of five articles by Salisbary, W. in Mariner's Mirror, 1966–68Google Scholar.

14 See The Eighth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Enquiry. His Majesty's Victualling Department at Plymouth, Parliamentary Papers, 1803–1804, vol. 3. There is also some information in The Ninth Report of the Commissioners' of Naval Enquiry. Receipt and Issue of Stores in Plymouth Yard, Parliamentary Papers, 1805, vol. 2.

15 Prices taken from material in the Henley Collection and the Report from the Committee Appointed to Consider the Coal Trade of this Kingdom (1800) 108–19, 129.

16 See Ville, Simon, “James Kirton, Shipping Agent,” Mariners Mirror 67 (1981): 149–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Hausman, W. J., “A Model of the London Coal Trade in the Eighteenth Century,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 94 (1980): 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Ralph Davis, English Shipping Industry, 376.