British Trade Research Articles

The Role of the North-China Herald in the Anti-Tax Activities of British Businessmen in Shanghai, 1850-1854

Leveraging historical records from the North-China Herald alongside British Parliamentary archives and correspondence from key stakeholders, this article delves into the publication’s influence during the period of the “Shanghai Insurgents (1853-1855, i.e., from Qing Heen-Fung 3rd to 5th year).” Specifically, it investigates the North-China Herald’s involvement in the advocacy efforts of British merchants in Shanghai against taxation policies amid the backdrop of the conflict. Analysis reveals a notable shift: preceding the “Shanghai Insurgents,” British merchants voiced dissent against Qing government tax policies through the North-China Herald; post-war, the newspaper actively championed the grievances of British traders in Shanghai, amplifying their concerns through extensive coverage and commentary. Ultimately, the establishment of the “Office of Inspector of Chinese Customs” marked a significant triumph for the anti-tax activities led by British businessmen in Shanghai, with the North-China Herald in shaping public opinion and influencing policy outcomes.

Post-colonial Relations of Britain with India and Pakistan, 1947–71

Abstract The decolonization process of Britain in India was completed with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947. Because of the long colonial history in that area, it was natural that creating bilateral relations between Britain and the two former colonized parties (India and Pakistan) would be challenging and not free of issues. Furthermore, the two colonized parties were in a bitter relationship with each other. The major concern of this paper is to present the post-colonial bilateral relations of Britain with each country, India and Pakistan, between 1947 and 1971. It argues that multiple factors led Britain to maintain a balanced relationship with its former colony. These are: 1) British trade interests, 2) cold war relations, 3) wars between India and Pakistan, 4) Commonwealth issues, and above all, 5) British national interests in that region.

Nicholas D. Jackson. The First British Trade Expedition to China: Captain Weddell and the Courteen Fleet in Asia and Late Ming Canton Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022. Pp. 206. $74.00 (cloth).

Nicholas D. Jackson. The First British Trade Expedition to China: Captain Weddell and the Courteen Fleet in Asia and Late Ming Canton Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022. Pp. 206. $74.00 (cloth).

‘Merchant Princes and Ocean Leviathans:’ the Uneven Development of the Overseas Mail, 1837–1880

ABSTRACT Over the nineteenth century, the global expansion of British trade and settlement were underwritten by a massive expansion of correspondence and communication networks. But while there are detailed studies of how the domestic Post Office developed in this era, how mail was carried between these colonial and international locations has not been fully investigated. This omission is striking because, as this article explains, the development of overseas mail services diverged significantly from the patterns of reform, cost-efficiency, and rationalisation described in histories of the domestic Post Office. Rather, the overseas mail grew through a set of unprecedented partnerships between the state and steamship companies that resulted in a surprisingly uneven postal network, which served an expanding collection of international and colonial ports but under highly variable conditions and costs. This article brings together postal records, Parliamentary debates, and the histories of steamship companies to explain how the overseas mail system developed between 1837 and 1880 as the power of private actors waxed and waned. It not only explains how a central utility of empire functioned but also provides insight on the operation of a key set of public-private partnerships in the nineteenth-century British world.

The National Union of Journalists and Journalism Education in Interwar Britain

ABSTRACT Are journalists born or made? During the interwar period (1919–1939), the British National Union of Journalists (NUJ) grappled with this question, as the first university course for journalism was founded and more university-educated staff entered newsrooms. This article is the first to consider interwar journalists’ opinions on whether and how British journalists should be educated. Debates on journalism education continued until the 1990s, when university education became the norm for British journalists. This article explores the emergence of this contentious argument. Through the articles published in the pages of the NUJ’s monthly member magazine the Journalist, two strands of the NUJ’s activities on education are explored: the Union’s stance on the University of London Diploma for Journalism and the work of the NUJ’s Education Committee. During the interwar period, the National Union of Journalists developed educational output for its members. Unlike other British trade unions, the NUJ focused on providing its members with education that was directly related to their careers. These activities raised fundamental questions that went to the heart of the profession during a period when journalism’s professional identity in Britain was still evolving.

Labour, the Unions and Proportional Representation

AbstractThe Labour Party's support will likely be crucial to any major change of the voting system in the UK. While Labour has supported first past the post for most of its existence, a resolution was passed at the 2022 party conference calling for Labour to include in its manifesto a commitment to change the voting system to proportional representation after the next election. This resulted from an effective campaign by activists to change the party's policy on electoral reform. The position of the trade unions, often perceived to be conservative on constitutional issues, was particularly important. This article focusses on the campaign to change the opinion of the British trade union movement. It outlines the British trade union movement's historic reservations about electoral reform and then analyses the grassroots effort behind this movement, focussing on the organisation of Make Votes Matter, Labour for a New Democracy, and Politics for the Many. The article concludes by offering insights into the potential long‐term consequences of this campaign and its potential impact on the ideological direction of the Labour Party.

Legal Boundaries, Organizational Fields, and Trade Union Politics: The Development of Railway Unions in the US and the UK

AbstractThroughout the nineteenth century, powerful railway unions in the USA and the UK cultivated an expansive system of voluntary sickness, death, unemployment, and superannuation benefits. By the early twentieth century, the movements had diverged: while the British Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants relinquished its commitment to voluntarism in favor of state healthcare and pensions, the American Railway Brotherhoods persisted along voluntarist lines, resisting social insurance in favor of exclusive schemes for their white male membership. What accounts for these diverging orientations? I highlight the importance of organizational forms as a lens for understanding comparative trade union strategy, emphasizing the role of law in designating legitimate forms of working-class association. I demonstrate that governing elites in both countries promoted voluntarism as a benign form of working-class organization throughout much of the nineteenth century. Consequently, I argue, early American and British trade unions adopted benefits in part because they enabled them to mimic the far more respected and legitimate friendly and fraternal mutual benefit societies. Toward the end of the century, the context had changed: while alternative organizational avenues were opened for trade unions in the UK, benefits presented an ongoing organizational lifeline for American unions. In defining and redefining the boundaries of legitimate forms of workers’ associations, legal decisions in both countries shaped not only trade union organizing strategies in the short run but also their positioning in broader social struggles.

How British was Larkinism? Big Jim Larkin and the British Labour Movement, 1907–1914

Born in Liverpool in 1874, Big Jim Larkin always insisted that he was Irish. No historian has ever challenged him on the claim, or seen him as anything other than a uniquely Irish figure. And yet there was a British dimension to Larkin’s outlook. Liverpool gave him a love of soccer and travel, and shaped his interest in socialism and literature. He first went to Ireland in 1907 as an agent of a British trade union and remained keenly engaged with British Labour up to his departure for America in 1914. During the Dublin lockout in 1913, Larkin demanded aid from British workers with a sense of entitlement that no other Irish Labour leader would have entertained. His ‘Fiery Cross’ campaign made the lockout a part of British labour history. Larkinism too should be lifted out of a purely Irish context. It was not only a subset of the ‘Great Labour Unrest’ that shook British industrial relations between 1911 and 1914, but a reflex of international trends in industrial conflict and growing support for syndicalism between 1890 and 1914. Larkin was a changed man after the lockout and never again had the same level of engagement with British trade unionism.

Mercantile Life in Early 19th Century Southeast Asia: The Ross Brothers

Abstract: British traders operating in the East in the early nineteenth century faced warfare, piracy, and shipwreck, along with the competing interests of local rulers and East India Company (EIC) officials. This article looks at episodes in the maritime careers of three brothers to show how the commercial environment affected trade. The brothers were born in Jamaica, illegitimate sons of a Scottish trader who served as a government official and his freed slave. One son became a ship’s captain in the Bombay Marine, the private navy of the EIC and an important surveyor of Eastern seas. Another son also joined the Bombay Marine but left under unknown circumstances and transferred to the private ‘country trade’ after adopting a new name. The third son became a ship’s captain in the country trade and died after an attack by local pirates in Bangka. The family circumstances that led to the brothers’ careers and lives of their children are summarized to illustrate the social mobility of descendants of West Indian slaves in the early nineteenth century.

The Collapse of the Riau Entrepôt in 1784 and the Rise of Singapore

Abstract: The creation of a British trading station on the island of Singapore in 1819 and the ensuing 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty have traditionally been presented as causes of the division and decline of the Johor-Riau sultanate. This article proposes a less Eurocentric explanation, arguing that the collapse of the Riau entrepôt in 1784 set in motion a train of events that culminated a generation later with the emergence of an entrepôt on Singapore, which quickly became a major trading centre. This interpretation is based on the actions of the chief protagonists in 1784, when a rupture of Dutch-Bugis relations produced a divide between Riau’s Malay and Bugis factions, a conceptual parting of ways between sultanate and entrepôt, and an English fixation on Riau as the archetype of the straits entrepôt. Re-examining the collapse of Riau provides fresh perspectives on the origins of early colonial Singapore, while also drawing much needed attention to the continuities between the Singapore entrepôt and its antecedents in the Straits.

Organizing women. Gender equality policies in French and British Trade Unions by CécileGuillaume. Bristol University Press, 2021, 212 pp., ISBN: 978–1529213690, Price GBP 80.00, h/b

Organizing women. Gender equality policies in French and British Trade Unions by CécileGuillaume. Bristol University Press, 2021, 212 pp., ISBN: 978–1529213690, Price GBP 80.00, h/b

Социально-экономические проблемы современной Великобритании и антироссийская политика её правительства

The article examines the socio-economic problems of contemporary Britain after leaving European Union, that had a negative impact on the British economy. Attempts to ensure economic growth and prosperity have not given results. The coronavirus pandemic and the present energy crisis have been superimposed on the economic downturn that has begun in the country. The Conservative government was not ready for this, and the socio-economic consequences of the recession hurt the well-being of ordinary Britons. The author draws attention to the rise of prices for energy, food, housing, utilities. The situation was aggravated by the UK's accession to anti-Russian sanctions after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine. The author comes to the conclusion that the anti-Russian orientation in the activities of the British government was not random, what is confirmed by official documents. It is shown that as the socio-economic problems deepened, citizens' dissatisfaction with the falling standard of living increased. However, the conservatives attributed their failures to the Russian factor and the need for large-scale assistance to the Nazi regime in Ukraine. The article examines various forms of social protest – from the creation of the Don't Pay UK movement to numerous strikes and demonstrations organized by British trade unions.

English commercial ascendancy and the growth in competition for Baltic markets, 1650–1700

ABSTRACT From the 1650s the expansion of English interests in the Baltic fostered more competition for access to commercial markets. A desire from Sweden to meet its own commercial goals also led to a greater level of competition for shipping. An increasing association between England and Sweden brought about the greatest commercial shift in Baltic commerce during that century. Building on research that has established general trends in Anglo-Baltic commercial history during the period, this article assesses the growth and competition of English commercial ambition. The article consults data sets such as the Sound Toll Registers Online, and the Stockholm customs accounts, while taking into consideration contemporary diplomatic sources. It seeks to answer why, how and where English trade became competitive in the Baltic. It outlines general commercial flows by juxtaposing England’s shipping next to its nearest competitors and consults three case studies to reveal previously unrealised nuances in Anglo-Baltic trade.

Multiscale analysis of Benjamin Franklin’s innovations in American paper money

Benjamin Franklin was a preeminent proponent of the new colonial and Continental paper monetary system in 18th-century America. He established a network of printers, designing and printing money notes at the same time. Franklin recognized the necessity of paper money in breaking American dependence on the British trading system, and he helped print Continental money to finance the American War of Independence. We use a unique combination of nondistractive, microdestructive, and advanced atomic-level imaging methods, including Raman, Infrared, electron energy loss spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, to analyze pre-Federal American paper money from the Rare Books and Special Collections of the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame. We investigate and compare the chemical compositions of the paper fibers, the inks, and fillers made of special crystals in the bills printed by Franklin's printing network, other colonial printers, and counterfeit money. Our results reveal previously unknown ways that Franklin developed to safeguard printed money notes against counterfeiting. Franklin used natural graphite pigments to print money and developed durable "money paper" with colored fibers and translucent muscovite fillers, along with his own unique designs of "nature-printed" patterns and paper watermarks. These features and inventions made pre-Federal American paper currency an archetype for developing paper money for centuries to come. Our multiscale analysis also provides essential information for the preservation of historical paper money.

British trade unionism in the 1980s reassessed. are recurring assumptions about union membership and strikes flawed?

ABSTRACT This article questions the hypothesis, put forward by several historians and IR academics, that the 1980s decline in British union membership and strike frequency, was driven by major industrial defeats, a cultural shift away from collectivism, and the adverse effects of the Conservative Government’s anti-union legislation. In contrast, this paper argues that international economic developments, most notably the globalisation of manufacturing production, along with the British Conservative Government’s economic policies, which resulted in mass unemployment in heavily unionised areas of the economy, were the principal reasons for the declines in union membership and strike frequency during the 1980s. In support of this theory, my article draws upon extensive contemporaneous research, which I conducted when I worked in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick in the late 1980s. This research illustrates how strike frequency and union membership fell in the early and mid-1980s, before membership stabilized, and the frequency of strikes relative to the number of unionised workplaces increased, during the short-lived economic upturn of the late 1980s.

The Port of Hugli in Seventeenth-century Bengal

Medieval Bengal occupied a focal position on the map of India due to its unique topography. The province was profusely rich in agricultural and non-agricultural produce as attested in the accounts of many foreign travellers. Satgaon and Chittagong in Bengal were the initial trading centres and custom ports in the sixteenth century. With the decline of the port of Satgaon, Hugli acquired a place of commercial importance in the seventeenth century. This marked the decline of Portuguese trade in Bengal with the simultaneous rise in Dutch and the English trade. The Hugli port served as a market for a wide range of commodities, and with time it developed into a major textile-producing area in the Mughal Empire. A series of studies by modern authors shed light on the commercial aspects of the Hugli port-town. Using Persian sources, travellers’ accounts, and records in English, this article revisits the relevance of the Hugli port in the seventeenth century. The article analyses the lucrative trade the port offered until its importance was overshadowed by the gradual rise of the port of Calcutta in the eighteenth century.

Trade in the Ports of Bushire, Khorramshahr, Bandar Abbas, Bahrain, Kuwait and Muscat in 1936 A Study Based on Frank Todd’s Report

This article deals with the commercial conditions in the Arab Gulf region in 1936 based on the report prepared by Frank Todd, the British Vice Consul in Bushire. This paper studied only six Gulf ports included in the report, three of which were on the eastern bank of the Arabian Gulf, namely Bushire, Khorramshahr, Bandar Abbas, and three Arab ports, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, and Muscat. The study provides a clear and integrated picture of their commercial conditions, especially in terms of trade movement, participating countries, exchanged commodities, and financial statements related to exports and imports in terms of increase or decrease. The most prominent finding of this paper was the continuation of British trade in those ports, but not at the level desired by the British government, as its trade witnessed a decline in some ports due to international competition, especially from Japan.

Jahangir's China and Other Toys: Mughal Collecting and the Early East India Company

AbstractDuring the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there arose in Europe a new demand for curiosities. While private collectors sought out exotic curiosities for their own cabinets, public botanical gardens also opened their doors. This essay turns to English attitudes towards Mughal collecting during the early seventeenth century. As active participants in what is now described as the ‘Global Renaissance’ Jahangir, the women in his household including Nur Jahan, as well as Mughal courtiers and officials also sought out curious objects from around the world. This essay examines the accounts of early East India Company factors and ambassadors, especially those by William Hawkins and Sir Thomas Roe, to show how in English records Mughal collecting became associated with eastern greed at a time when the Company itself was profiting from the marketplace of the strange. Drawing on travel accounts, letters, as well as Company court minutes on the one hand, and Mughal sources such as Humayun Nama, Akbar Nama, and Tuzk‐i‐Jahangiri, this essay will explore the rich culture of Mughal collecting. It will show how the Company made note of the Mughal emperor's collections, tried to supply him new curiosities, and, at the same time, saw the Mughal desire for curiosities as an impediment to English trading activities in India.

Artifacts from the Perspective of Effutu Masquerade Performance: An Aesthetic Album

Artifacts from the Perspective of Effutu Masquerade Performance: An Aesthetic Album

Working-Class Women and the Progressive Era Development of Public Administration: The Case of Margaret Bondfield

Using a case study of British trade union organizer Margaret Bondfield, this article begins the task of adding a working class perspective to accounts of women’s participation in Progressive era urban reform and expansion of public policy while also showing how international networks of support among trade union women undergirded American reform efforts. The narrative expands the consideration of intersectionality and positionality in analyzing women’s role in developing public administration.