Financing Lancashire's industrial development
type: CreativeWork
description: Historians of industrial financing have often adopted a single-firm or single issue approach, emphasising prominent companies that have bequeathed documentary riches on which detailed studies can be based. However, historians concede that such firms were untypical, as most businesses disappeared leaving liftle trace. Even so, all too little consideration has been given to the source material that is available, especially to assess the ability of partnerships to generate company finance, whilst aspects of the demand for capital that arose from urbanisation and transport development also remains under-researched. Concentrating on textile Lancashire, this thesis researches lesser-known entrepreneurs between 1770 and 1850 from little-used primary material, studying partnerships as important suppliers of capital. This original approach demonstrates the growing importance of partnerships, particularly amongst non-family firms, exploring the sources of funding they tapped, and comparing share allocations they made. Consideration is also given to investments partnerships made in establishing related enterprises and how they coped with capital withdrawal on a partner's retirement. Investment in Lancashire's infrastructure is analysed partly in relation to the construction and improvement of turnpike roads, matters of considerable importance to manufacturers in transporting products and raw materials and which required high levels of financing. It examines the levels of finance needed for improvements, the sources from which it was drawn, and the role of businessmen in financial management of turnpike trusts. Infrastructural development is also addressed in relation to the construction of the numerous handloom weavers' cottages that were built by terminating building societies. Identifying the membership of these societies reveals that they were not self-help schemes for artisans, but rather that they offered opportunities for those with surplus income to invest in tenanted p…
abstract: Historians of industrial financing have often adopted a single-firm or single issue approach, emphasising prominent companies that have bequeathed documentary riches on which detailed studies can be based. However, historians concede that such firms were untypical, as most businesses disappeared leaving liftle trace. Even so, all too little consideration has been given to the source material that is available, especially to assess the ability of partnerships to generate company finance, whilst aspects of the demand for capital that arose from urbanisation and transport development also remains under-researched. Concentrating on textile Lancashire, this thesis researches lesser-known entrepreneurs between 1770 and 1850 from little-used primary material, studying partnerships as important suppliers of capital. This original approach demonstrates the growing importance of partnerships, particularly amongst non-family firms, exploring the sources of funding they tapped, and comparing share allocations they made. Consideration is also given to investments partnerships made in establishing related enterprises and how they coped with capital withdrawal on a partner's retirement. Investment in Lancashire's infrastructure is analysed partly in relation to the construction and improvement of turnpike roads, matters of considerable importance to manufacturers in transporting products and raw materials and which required high levels of financing. It examines the levels of finance needed for improvements, the sources from which it was drawn, and the role of businessmen in financial management of turnpike trusts. Infrastructural development is also addressed in relation to the construction of the numerous handloom weavers' cottages that were built by terminating building societies. Identifying the membership of these societies reveals that they were not self-help schemes for artisans, but rather that they offered opportunities for those with surplus income to invest in tenanted p…
author: Hart, Rosine
language: en
keywords: Human & social geography
date published: 2006-09
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:36:16Z
provider: University of Central Lancashire
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Central Lancashire