Debrett’s Bibliography of Business History

292 Pages·1987·14.476 MB·English

by  Stephanie Zarach (eds.)

DEBRETT'S BIBLIOGRAPHY OF
BUSINESS HISTORY
Debrett's Bibliography
of Business History
Edited by
Stephanie Zarach
Research Director, Debrett's Business History Research Ltd
Foreword by Theo Barker
Professor Emeritus of Economic History, University of London
and Chairman, Debrett's Business History Research Ltd
M
in association with
PALGRAVE
Debrett's Business History Research Ltd
MACMILLAN
© Debrett's Business History Research Ltd 1987
Foreword © Theo Barker 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987 978-0-333-42404-9
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1987
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Wessex Typesetters
(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)
Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Debrett's bibliography of business history.
1. Business enterprises-Great Britain
-History-Bibliography
I. Zarach, Stephanie
016.3387'0941 Z7164.C81
ISBN 978-1-349-08986-4 ISBN 978-1-349-08984-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-08984-0
Contents
Foreword by THEO BARKER IX
Preface XIV
Accountancy 1
Advertising 5
Agricultural Industries 6
Architects, Chartered Surveyors and Estate
Companies 7
Art Dealers and Auctioneers 9
Atomic Energy 11
Aviation 12
Banking and Finance 15
Beverages and Soft Drinks 33
Bookselling, Newsagents and Stationers 36
Brewing 38
Building and Construction 44
Building Societies 52
Chemical Industries 55
China, Cutlery, Porcelain and Pottery 61
Clothing 64
Confectionery 69
Co-operative Societies 72
Decorating Materials 79
Department Stores 81
Electricity, Electrical Firms and
Communications 86
Engineering 93
v
vi Contents
Food 106
Furniture and Fittings 114
Furs and Skins 116
Gas 117
Glass 119
Goldsmiths, Jewellers, Silversmiths
and Watchmakers 121
Hardware and Household 124
Hotels and Catering 127
Insurance 129
Iron and Steel 143
Law Firms 151
Leisure and Media 154
Metals 163
Mining 167
Motor Industry and Bicycles 171
Office Equipment 177
Oil 179
Paper and Packaging 181
Pharmaceuticals and Cosmetics 185
Precision Instruments 189
Printers and Publishers 191
Rubber 209
Shipping and General Merchants 210
The Stock Exchange and Stockbrokers 226
Contents vii
Textiles 228
Timber 240
Tobacco 242
Transport and Road Haulage 244
Wines and Spirits 247
Books of General Use to the Business
Historian 251
Index of Companies 254
Foreword: The Flowering of
Business History
Business history - or, more precisely, company history* - has grown
and developed considerably as a subject quite recently and
continues to do so. At least forty-five penetrating and widely
reviewed studies dealing with particular concerns have been
published since 1970 compared to just under forty during the
previous half-century, and many of the latter appeared in the 1960s.
More. trained historians have been attracted to work in this field and
a journal (Business History) keeps abreast of developments in the
subject through articles and book reviews. The Council for the
Preservation of Business Archives (latterly known as the Business
Archives Council) issues its own periodical, Business Archives, as
well as a regular Newsletter. Here is a subject on the move which is
becoming more professional and specialised.
A good company history offers advantages for the two worlds of
business and scholarship. Warts and all, it can be the best sort of
public relations exercise for the company concerned and a matter of
pride and prestige for the historian commissioned to write it. It
deals with, and explains, the mistakes as well as the sound decisions,
brings out the struggles as well as the excitements, the
disappointments as well as the elation, which accompanied ultimate
business success from which, by the provision of better or cheaper
goods and services, not to mention employment, society as a whole
has benefited. These benefits can be readily appreciated in the case
of well-known names like Sainsbury or Marks & Spencer; but less
well-known, less glamorous and even downright dowdy concerns,
large as well as small, have also made their contribution to
standards of living and human wellbeing. These deserve to be much
more widely known, too.
The management of these businesses in an economic climate
• The term 'business history' is best used to describe the general study of the
subject, the investigation of numbers of company histories and their records in an
attempt to reach some explanations of business success and failure such as the
importance of entrepreneurship, the role of the state of management's contribution
to industrial relations.
ix
X Foreword
constantly changing and usually very competitive (either with other
British concerns or, in trade, industry and in certain services such as
banking or insurance, with foreign rivals as well) presents challenges
which, in the absence of properly documented accounts of these
struggles, are virtually unknown to the public at large. Their
attention is so often drawn only to the rewards of business success:
the comfortable country home, the impressive car or the time spent
enjoying the life-style of others even better off or better known.
This image of the business man, often far from the truth, is a
serious deterrent to business recruitment. Many of the best
motivated young men and women at university and elsewhere are
easily (and early) converted to the view that they can best serve
humanity by going into social work. Few appreciate that they can
also achieve the same end by helping to generate the wealth which
makes the growingly costly social services possible. Profit is a
measure of business efficiency and not a dirty word. There is more
to work in business than mere money-making. But this point of view
will go by default, and will not percolate into the general history
books and the general consciousness, until more honest and open
company histories are promoted. It is worth noting that trade
unions, always proud of their past, have long been active in the
historical field. Their viewpoint has been taught to generations of
students at school or college. Is it not time that the management
view is presented at the same time so that a genuine debate can take
place and joint interest, as well as class struggle, perceived?
These matters are of urgent importance - and more and more
people are coming to understand this- if Britain's disappointing
economic performance is to be improved so that standards of living
and welfare are not to be allowed to fall farther behind those of her
main industrial competitors. (At the last count, by the OECD in
February 1985, she came thirteenth in a list of eighteen leading
industrial countries.) Businesses are the bricks from which the
whole national economic edifice is built. The enterprise of our
ancestors provided employment for a rapidly-growing population of
working age and, certainly from the 1850s if not before, a rising
standard of living as well. If these standards are to continue to go on
rising, the edifice needs constant modification and renewal. The
study of particular companies shows how this has been achieved in
the past, how businesses have diversified their interests or adapted
to structural change or to new competition. Much is to be learned
from their experience.
Foreword xi
Good, informative company history can come in all forms and
sizes. Sometimes, indeed often, the shorter, illustrated volume is
just as honest and effective as the long book which, one suspects, is
more often admired on the shelf than taken down and read. In any
case, there is usually a need for a shorter, snappier version of the
ponderous tome as well as the longer work. Whether short or long,
however, the investigation must be searching and thorough; and it is
inevitably research in the background literature as well as in the
records of the company itself.
All this work has now become more professional and specialised,
as was mentioned at the outset. The writing of history, not least
company history, is something upon which enthusiastic amateurs
embark at their peril. It is not a task for an elderly employee or
retired managing director, as many of them soon realise once their
initial enthusiasm begins to wane. High standards have now been
established and anything that falls below them is obvious to even the
most casual reader. The assistance of the trained company historian
should be enlisted; and as the result of the recent development of
the subject, there are more and more of them about.
Debrett's Business History Research Limited was formed during
1984 to put businessmen in touch with this small but growing band.
It is completely independent of any other company bearing the
name Debrett, though it is a sister concern of Debrett Ancestry
Research Limited. It can already claim an unrivalled knowledge of
specialists in company history, not only men and women with
previous work to their credit, but also those who have specialised in
the history of particular branches of business. As with all history,
the diamond lacks lustre if it is not put carefully into its setting.
When anyone gets into touch with Debrett about the possibility of
having a history written, Debrett's first task is to make contact,
privately and confidentially, with a person particularly qualified for
the task. (If that person is already committed elsewhere, he or she
may be available on a part-time basis or in a consultative capacity,
with some other up-and-coming historian as collaborator.) When
the scale and scope of the research has been estimated, usually as
the result of a feasibility study undertaken by Debrett's Research
Director, Stephanie Zarach (the compiler of this bibliography),
various proposals on the time schedule and on cost, worked out by
Debrett in consultation with the historian or historians concerned,
are put to the company.
If these are found acceptable, Debrett then provides its second