Abstract
A number of issues have been raised about the nature of the small family business and its place in the industrialized society of I9th-century Britain. Business historians have argued that the conservatism and backwardness of such enterprises prevented them from coping with the economic changes that were taking place in the latter part of the century. However, a study of such businesses in Portsmouth challenges such perceptions by uncovering examples of family firms which survived the whole of the I9th century and which played a vital part in urban development during this period. This article uses the example of a local family firm as a way of uncovering the links between family, business and community, and investigating how the enmeshing of these three elements served to provide a level of respectability which underpinned its business activities, as well as a means of gaining positions of authority within the community for family members.
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