Windows of Opportunity in the Textile Industry: The Business Strategies of Lancashire Entrepreneurs, 1880–1914

Abstract

Using accounting records and financial data for a sample of cotton companies, their individual and collective business histories between 1870 and 1914 are presented. The process of capital accumulation is advanced as a crucial ingredient of the history of Lancashire textiles. A rising class of promotional capitalists and individualistic entrepreneurs is identified. Their reluctance to establish professional management hierarchies depended on preferences for individual, instead of corporate, accumulation. Instead of investing in formal monitoring systems, they preferred instead to rely on loose federal structures and informal contacts with intermediaries in other markets. Investment strategies and profitability were determined by these relationships, together with the impact of the trade cycle, but above all were influenced by the character of capital ownership and accumulation.