Merchant Company Research Articles

Get It in Writing (If You Can): Regulating Foreign Communities in Tokugawa Japan

Abstract: This article proposes “capitulations” and “contracts” as a framework for reassessing how the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868) regulated foreign merchants. Capitulations are an established subject of study in other contexts, but this work brings the concept to bear on early modern Japan. Comparing documents exchanged with the Chinese, Dutch, English, Portuguese, and Spanish communities in the seventeenth century, we find that Tokugawa capitulations changed in form and content. Initial Tokugawa capitulations to the Dutch and other newly arriving foreign communities provided assurances in the form of written orders carrying the shogun’s personal seal. But in time guarantees of privileges direct from the shogun yielded to the issuance of restrictions that were communicated orally and put to paper (if at all) by lower-ranking officials. Later contracts made with the Dutch East India Company were agreed between local merchants and Company merchants, likely without the involvement of authorities. Together, capitulations—organizing relations between hegemons and merchants, and contracts—organizing trade among merchants, fulfilled many of the functions later assumed by commercial treaties. Using this conceptual framework helps integrate Tokugawa Japan into the broader historiography exploring how early modern regimes engaged with commercial actors straddling multiple polities during intensifying long-distance trade.

Revealing the Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies through law and the painted moment

Teleological histories frequently identify the emergence of company law in England as originating in the charter corporations of the Elizabethan period. I argue that while the corporations created for foreign trade helped amass the wealth required for the capitalist development which would subsequently shape the modern company, corporations are not its organisational origin story. I demonstrate this using a multi-disciplinary study of the East India Company (the Company). By analysing the evolving rights of Company stockholders and related legal developments, I show how the state shaped a trading venture into a colonial project and strategic force in European military conflicts. Uniquely, I further evidence this through an analysis of art connected with the Company made contemporaneously to the events discussed. This shows that the Company was an aggregate of people and ambitions conjoining private finance with the imperial aspirations of the Crown – a ‘they’ not the ‘it’ of modern companies.

Issues of Improvement and Reorganization of Russian-Chinese Trade in the Notes and Projects of its Participants

The article is devoted to the projects of the Siberian merchants to improve the Russian-Chinese trade through changes in its organization to attract more participants, transfer operations to Chinese and Mongolian territories, and develop transport infrastructure. Particular attention is paid to proposals for the unification of merchant capital for the development of commercial development of Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. Even in the initial period of the Russian-Chinese bargaining, projects of the Irkutsk vice-governor L. Lang and Governor A. Bril appeared, proposing to create a single merchant company under the auspices of the state, like the East India Companies of England and Holland. Further projects were devoted to the transfer of trade to the territory of the Qing Empire, the expansion of the social composition of participants through the formation of merchant companies. The analysis of merchant notes and projects allows us to speak of their authors as creative and experienced entrepreneurs seeking to expand Russian-Chinese trade ties and strengthen the empire's position on the southeastern borders of Russia.

Intercultural, Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue: An Introduction

Religious traditions with their universal intent on human salvation or well-being have de-territorialized themselves or migrated from the place of their origin along trade routes in the company of merchants, invaders, and colonizers [...]

Folk Performances and the European Gaze in Bengal in the Nineteenth Century

Cultural anthropologists acknowledge the primacy of the spectator’s gaze in assigning hierarchical space to performances within the public sphere. Equations of power and transactions between agents of performance and the consumer or between the language of the entitled spectator and subject performers determine the category assigned to a given performance: folk or elite, classic or popular, high or subaltern. The late eighteenth – early nineteenth century in Bengal was a period of political and social transition and of realignment along religious, spatial and intellectual lines. The birth and growth of the metropolitan urban centre (Calcutta), an increasing presence of European residents of both genders in Calcutta and Bengal and the shift of power and influence from Muslim military aristocracy to an European merchant company (The British East India Company), meant that traditional indigenous performances were often thrown open for commentary and judgment to an audience who were largely outsiders and to whom the nuances of language, caste, class, region, ritual signification were matters of academic interest only occasioning descriptive commentaries on the practices in an alien country. In the travelogues and memoirs of Maria Nugent or Fanny Parkes, for instance, rituals, customs or performances were viewed as exemplifying the picturesque ‘otherness’ of an alien race. This paper will focus on evidences within British colonial writings of the early nineteenth century describing what appeared to observers as performances, with which they attempt to conceptualize the native ‘other’ as a cultural trope.

Earlier synthetic balance sheet of Datini's Company in Avignon (1410)

When studying accounting history, the use of archival sources is very important. Unfortunately, when scholars explore the genesis of accounting practice, archival sources are not often used. This paper does so, presenting a detailed explanation of features of the accounting system used by Francesco di Marco Datini’s’ company in Avignon 14091410. This accounting system used stocktaking and double entry in order to determination of the operating result and produce an analytical balance sheet. This study analyzed the Quaderno di Ragionamento (the book for drawing-up final accounts, including the financial result) with the aim of clarifying the features of this process. It also investigated the procedure used in preparing the synthetic balance sheet, a process not known previously elsewhere. This research was based on the archival material comprising of account books of the medieval merchant company of Datini, preserved in the State Archive in Prato.

Mining Photography: The Oficina Alianza and Port of Iquique 1899

En 1899, el señor Smail, representante de la casa mercantil británica Antony Gibbs and Sons en Chile, envió el álbum de fotografías Oficina Alianza and Port of Iquique 1899, al propietario de la compañía, Henry Hucks Gibbs. Este artículo ofrece un análisis del imaginario fotográfico del álbum, en particular de las convenciones de la fotografía industrial en la representación de la minería de nitrato en Chile y del cuerpo del minero en el momento de trabajar. El artícu-lo considera también la función del álbum fotográfico en la industria de nitrato y su papel en la circulación y el tráfico comercial de nitrato entre Chile y Gran Bretaña.

Influence of UK economic and market policies on a small wine merchant

This study shows how the economy and market policies, norms, laws, and rules can affect small wine merchants within the British market (and beyond). Thus using a marketing mix for market analysis, it is paramount to consider differences among countries, politics, distinct cultures, and economies. This research considered and scrutinised all aspects of the wine business and industry. A small wine merchant company was chosen for this case study and business analysis using PESTLE analysis and Porter's five forces model. The results underline the importance of a correct marketing strategy as the key to success: this case study of a small wine merchant's structure enables identification of the most suitable approach for small wine companies in the UK. The research design supports an enhanced understanding of company culture as well as the environment of the British market, with implications for identifying the correct planning and strategy.

Influence of UK economic and market policies on a small wine merchant

This study shows how the economy and market policies, norms, laws, and rules can affect small wine merchants within the British market (and beyond). Thus using a marketing mix for market analysis, it is paramount to consider differences among countries, politics, distinct cultures, and economies. This research considered and scrutinised all aspects of the wine business and industry. A small wine merchant company was chosen for this case study and business analysis using PESTLE analysis and Porter's five forces model. The results underline the importance of a correct marketing strategy as the key to success: this case study of a small wine merchant's structure enables identification of the most suitable approach for small wine companies in the UK. The research design supports an enhanced understanding of company culture as well as the environment of the British market, with implications for identifying the correct planning and strategy.

Traveling Companions: Women, Trade, and the Early East India Company

While considering the many economic and personal relationships forged in the Indian Ocean during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the friendships and collaborations among European women and their counterparts in Mughal India often remain neglected. In reality these women traveled back and forth between continents, often alongside their husbands, and created new avenues of cultural dialogue and commercial exchange. In particular this essay will examine the interactions of three women: the Armenian Christian maiden later identified as Mariam Khan, who was chosen by the Mughal emperor Jahangir to become the wife of Captain William Hawkins of the East India Company, and two English women, Frances Steele and Mrs. Hudson. Soon after her husband's death on the voyage to England in 1613, Mariam married another East India Company employee, Captain Gabriel Towerson. After a few years in London, she set sail for India in 1617, this time accompanied by Steele and Hudson. Together they formed personal bonds of friendship that also had significant economic and cultural implications, as the English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe discovered. Unlike company merchants, the English women were able to access the zenana quarters of Mughal India, and their acquaintance with Mariam possibly made it easier for them to build vital relationships with daughters and wives of Mughal officials. In so doing they secured privileges for themselves and their husbands, often countering the direct interests of the East India Company.

Trading Letters in the Arabian Seas: The Correspondence Networks of British Merchants in Eighteenth-Century Western India

This article explores the “private trade” network of British East India Company merchants in one segment of the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean world, foregrounding a new perspective on this element of European commerce in early modern Asia. Much recent work on this topic emphasizes the importance of the global or “diasporic” connections back to Europe that British merchants made for the success of private trade. By contrast, this article argues for the importance of regionally situated commercial associations for the day-to-day functioning of private trade, particularly emphasizing the role of Asian merchants. While private traders were clearly embedded in epistolary networks that connected them to an emerging global economy, looking at the western Indian Ocean reveals the extent to which they also relied on more localized commercial associations mediated through the exchange of letters. Letter-based ties to local merchants were vital for the exchange of commercial information, for the procurement of goods, and for the transfer of credit. Such synergistic transcultural interactions were central to the emergence, operation, and growth of British private trade networks in the eighteenth century.

English Private Trade on the West Coast of India, c. 1680–c. 1740

This article explores the private trade networks of English East India Company merchants on the west coast of India during the first half of the eighteenth century. Existing studies of English private trade in the Indian Ocean have almost exclusively focused on India's eastern seaboard, the Coromandel Coast and the Bay of Bengal regions. This article argues that looking at private trade from the perspective of the western Indian Ocean provides a different picture of this important branch of European trade. It uses EIC records and merchants' private papers to argue against recent metropolitan-centred approaches to English private trade, instead emphasising the importance of more localised political and economic contexts, within the Indian Ocean world, for shaping the conduct and success of this commerce.

Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), explorer and a founding scientist of the Pasteur Institutes

2013 was the year to celebrate Yersin: the 150th anniversary of his birth and the 70th anniversary of his death. Beyond the images usually attached to the memory of this doctor who discovered the bubonic plague bacillus (in Hong Kong in 1894), the author seeks to introduce Yersin, the man, as an explorer curious about his environment rather than a scientist concerned with honors and public recognition. Alexandre Yersin is an atypical figure in the universe of Pasteur, his collaborators, students, and followers. Although he began his career working with Louis Pasteur following the development of the vaccine against rabies, in 1885, the call of the sea led him to quit the laboratory on rue Ulm to, he said, "explore new lands". He worked for the Messageries maritimes merchant shipping company. In Saigon, he met Albert Calmette, who convinced him to join the newly created Colonial Army Medical Corps. In 1892 in Nha-Trang, Yersin set up a bacteriology laboratory in a straw hut; it subsequently became the first Pasteur Institute in Indochina, the starting point of a network of research laboratories. During the bubonic plague epidemic that raged in Hong Kong, Yersin succeeded in isolating its causal agent, surprising even himself by the ease with which he did so. He was 30 years old then, but what could have been the start of a prestigious career, crowned with honors, was spent instead at the service of the local populations. His exploration of the Vietnam highlands gave Yersin the occasion to cultivate and reveal a prodigious eclecticism and his profound humanism. He led three explorations in unknown regions of Annam and contributed to the development of this country by his social, educational, medical, and economic approach, entirely dedicated to aiding the indigenous populations. Yersin never left Vietnam again. He worked as an astronomer and agronomist (introducing the cultivation of cinchona (source of quinine) and rubber trees in the country) - always close to the population. He is buried at Nha-Trang; the Vietnamese continue to honor his memory fervently.

A Case Study of the Impact of Wealth on the Criminal Justice System in Early Nineteenth-Century England

Using a case study of the passage of the son of a wealthy, well connected East India Company merchant through the English criminal justice system from 1812 to 1815, this article examines the attitudes and strategies of his family, lawyers and prosecutors in order to assess the impact of wealth and influence at different stages of the judicial process. It demonstrates that complex questions of social, political and family allegiances determined when and how wealthy families chose to apply or abandon attempts to influence the course of justice. Both father and son could call on a number of relatives and elite acquaintances, but while the son expected their support, the father sought to prevent it because he wanted the law to stop his profligate son from defrauding society. In doing so he conflated the public good with private interest and, while he insisted on the impartiality of the law, his use of money to hire or fire legal counsel and his decision not to call on influential connections, was highly instrumental and had a significant impact at different stages.

Early Liaisons: East India Company, Native Wives, and Inscription in the Seventeenth Century

This essay examines how one seventeenth-century native wife, the unnamed daughter of Mubarak Shah, one of Akbar's courtiers, entered the archives of the East India Company. Married to two different English factors, William Hawkins and Gabriel Towerson, she became a new investigative category for the Company directors in London as well as for the new English ambassador to Jahangir's court, Sir Thomas Roe. The debates surrounding Mubarak Shah's daughter provide an important insight into the East India Company's emergent discourse on race and profit. Simultaneously, the debates open up conflicting attitudes toward the taking of native spouses: their advantages and liabilities to Company merchants.

Logistics simulation modelling across construction supply chains

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a logistical analysis of construction supply chains by assessing the impact of varying demand on the performance of builders' merchants' logistics.Design/methodology/approachTaking into consideration that the vast majority of construction materials are distributed through intermediary organisations, the paper focuses on the logistics of builders' merchants. The study follows a field study approach to develop a conceptual logistics model facilitating experimentation using simulation modelling.FindingsThe paper highlights the importance of incorporating intermediary organisations in the study of construction supply chains and reveals the implications of varying demand on logistics performance related to inventory and transportation costs.Research limitations/implicationsIn order to limit assumptions associated with individual company characteristics, the sample has included data from one builder's merchant company. To allow external benchmarking, the suggested approach has to be applied to a wider sample.Practical implicationsThe paper provides a practical understanding in terms of the function of intermediary organisations in construction supply chains and the application of logistics management in construction.Originality/valueConsidering the complexity involved in construction supply chain operations, the value of this research is twofold. First, the research contributes to an interdisciplinary approach to the study of construction supply chains and second, provides a risk‐free environment for modelling supply chain cost performance.

Parenting the Profligate Son: Masculinity, Gentility and Juvenile Delinquency in England, 1791-1814

This case study of fatherhood in early nineteenth-century England examines the conflict between a wealthy East India Company merchant and his increasingly wayward adolescent son, who was transported to Australia in 1814. It argues that fatherhood was often necessarily a reactionary process, that did not conform to a static, historically specific model of ideal or dysfunctional fatherhood. It also traces the origins of much of the disagreement to conflicting ideals of masculinity between father and son, which were exacerbated by their rise in wealth and social status. Since both aspired to the elite status of gentleman, the article demonstrates that competing and compatible ideals can co-exist within different generations of the same family. Thus a study of male family experience suggests that hegemonic masculinity is subject to short-term shifts of emphasis on those values adopted by men of different ages and social status.

The ‘Babylonian captivity’ of Petracco di ser Parenzo dell’Incisa, father of Francesco Petrarca

This article focuses on the discovery of two unedited notarial instruments preserved among Westminster abbey muniments and compiled by Petracco di ser Parenzo dell’Incisa, father of the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca. The two documents are dated February and April 1310 and prove that Petracco was working at Avignon earlier than it has been thought until now and in contrast with the claims of his son Francesco, who states that his family moved to Avignon between 1311 and 1312. The documents also highlight the connections between Petracco and the merchant company of the Frescobaldi, who traded at the papal curia in the early fourteenth century. The company employed a number of exiled Florentine Bianchi, who were interested in humanist ideas and classical texts, forming the first humanist circle at Avignon under the patronage of Cardinal Niccolo da Prato, who also became one of the patrons of Francesco Petrarca.

The London Fullers and Shearmen, and their Merger to Become the Clothworkers' Company

There was a large and rapidly expanding cloth finishing industry in London in the late fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. London merchants brought provincial cloth to the City, some of which was finished prior to export, and some was finished for the City's expanding clothing industry. The success of the London Fullers and Shearmen was reflected in their merger to form the Clothworkers' Company in 1528, and their acceptance ten years later as the last and twelfth merchant company in the City. The paper traces both the economic progress of the company and some of its principal members, and the difficulties that the Fullers and Shearmen faced as they decided to merge, and then to become accepted as one of the leading companies in the City.

The Merchant Taylors' Company of London under Elizabeth I: Tailors' Guild or Company of Merchants?

Probably the most neglected aspect of the history of the guilds and livery companies of early modern London is the ubiquitous subordinate organisation known as the 'yeomanry' or 'bachelors' company'. Many narrative histories of individual companies make only passing reference to the existence of a yeomanry, and dismiss the organisations as generally transient and insignificant. Per contra, the yeomanry of at least one of the major City livery companies represented to an extraordinary degree a company within a company in the later sixteenth century. By the time Elizabeth ascended the throne, the yeomanry body of the Merchant Taylors' Company had acquired effective responsibility for the vast majority of the Company's membership. To most contemporary and modern observers, the dazzling wealth, magnificent ceremonies and eminent members — entitled to wear the prestigious livery gown of the Company, and generally drawn from the mercantile and civic élite — were the most intriguing aspects of the history of the Merchant Taylors' Company. To the poor freemen below the livery these matters were of less significance. Part I of this article examines briefly the origins, nature and functions of the sub-company. Part II explores the degree to which this body represented the continuation of the traditions of the medieval guild of London tailors and continued to embody the aspirations and interests of its artisan members.