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The Fielden fortune. The finances of Lancashire's most successful ante-bellum manufacturing family1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Stanley Chapman
Stanley Chapman
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Type
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Information
Financial History Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , April 1996 , pp. 7 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © European Association for Banking and Financial History 1996

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References

2 Weaver, S. A., John Fielden and the Politics of Popular Radicalism 1832–1847 (Oxford, 1987) has a full bibliography of political histories, pp. 300–13.Google Scholar

3 For data on the comparative size of Fielden Brothers, see Table 1 and Chapman, S. D., Merchant Enterprise in Britain from the Industrial Revolution to World War I (Cambridge, 1992), p. 90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Anon, Fortunes Made in Business, I (1884) pp. 413–56. Weaver, John Fielden, ch. 1, is mainly interested in his subject's political career, and falls into some errors on the business side of his life.Google Scholar

5 Baines, E., History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County of Lancaster (Liverpool, 1825), vol. II, p. 265.Google Scholar

6 Montgomery, J., Cotton manufacture of the USA … compared with that of GB (Glasgow, 1840), p. 117Google Scholar; new edn. edited by D. J. Jeremy (Philadelphia, 1990).

7 Farnie, D. A., The English Cotton Industry and the World Market 1815–1896 (Oxford, 1979), p. 313.Google Scholar

8 Fielden, John, Paper Money and the Present System of Banking (1832), pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

9 Anon, Fortunes Made in Business.

10 Baines, , Directory, pp. 196, 303Google Scholar; Bank of England Archive, London [henceforth BoE]: Manchester letters [hereafter cited BE(M)], 6 Jun. 1828.

11 Anon, Fortunes Made in Business.

12 Fielden, John, National Regeneration (1834), p. 16.Google Scholar

13 The family owned a property at Bowker Bank, close to Thomas Fielden's home at Crumpsall (three miles north of Manchester), where there was a calico printing works, but it was never listed in the Fielden Brothers' name.

14 Chapman, S. D., ‘Financial restraints on the growth of firms in the cotton industry’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 32 (1979)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Quality versus quantity in the Industrial Revolution: the case of textile printing’, Northern History, 21 (1985).Google Scholar

15 Rylands Library, Manchester [henceforth RL]: Hodgson Robinson MSS; see especially HR to Fielden Bros, Feb. 1841; Longden Manor MSS., Shrewsbury [records of Mrs Anne Stevens, née Fielden], accounts for 1863–64.

16 Fielden, J., Paper Money (1832), pp. 10–11, 36.Google Scholar

17 Chapman, , ‘Financial restraints’.Google Scholar

18 Universal British Directory, III (Manchester, 1794)Google Scholar; Holden, J., A Short History of Todmorden (Manchester, 1912), pp. 176–8.Google Scholar

19 Articles in Todmorden Advertiser, 19 Jul. 1901, 24 Jan. 1902.

20 Autobiography of David Whitehead, pp. 115–18 (MS, Rawtenstall P.L.).Google Scholar

21 RL: Fielden MSS, letters to H. & P., 1812; and from Hodgson, 18 Apr. 1822. For Pickersgill family, see Burke's Landed Gentry (1900 edn.).

22 BoE: C5/282, pp. 88–9 lists six agents in Latin America: Rostron & Co. (Rio, Bahia); Green Nelson & Co. (Valparaiso); Phillips, Black & Co. (Montevideo and Mexico); Myers, Whitehead & Co. (Valparaiso); and Hegan, Hull & Co. (Arica and Lima). See also RL: Hodgson Robinson MSS. There was also Clegg & Christie in Syria in 1837.

23 Amsterdam Record Office: Mees & Hope MSS.; PA735, information books, V, p. 545.

24 Buck, N. S., Development of Anglo-American Trade 1800–1850 (Yale, 1925), pp. 107–8, 153–7.Google Scholar

25 For A. & S. Henry see Fortunes Made in Business, III (1884), pp. 201–51; Guildhall Library, London [henceforth GL]: Baring Brothers MSS, HC.3.40; BoE: BE (Leeds) letters, 17 Mar. 1830, letter books vol., pp. 179, 195. For Crafts & Stell see GL: Morrison Cryder MSS, numerous letters from C. & S. 1835–36; and for W. S. Stell (Manchester partner), New Hampshire Historical Society records, 16 May 1916. The other important United States house in Manchester was T. & J. Sands.Google Scholar

26 Chapman, Merchant Enterprise, chs 2, 3.

27 Circular to Bankers, 2 Sep. 1836, p. 404.Google Scholar

28 Circular to Bankers, 23 Jun. 1837, p. 467.Google Scholar

29 BoE: BE C5/282 pp. 97–8, 6 Jul. 1837.

30 For example SirClapham, J. H., The Bank of England. A History, II, 1797–1914 (Cambridge, 1944), pp. 157–61Google Scholar; Kynaston, D., The City of London, I, A World of Its Own 1815–1890 (London, 1994), pp. 107–10.Google Scholar

31 BoE: BE C5/238, 30 Apr. 1837, 14 Jun. 1837.

32 BoE: BE C5/282, 22 Jun. 1837.

33 Ellison, T., The Cotton Trade of Great Britain (1886), Table 2.Google Scholar

34 RL: Fielden MSS, analysis of manufacturing costs, 1842.

35 BoE: BE (Liverpool) letter books, 1840, p. 32; 1843, p. 381.

36 BoE: BE (M) letters, 10 Dec. 1839.

37 BoE: BE (Leeds) letter books, V, 1850, p. 15; IV, 1847, p. 195.

38 Fortunes Made in Business, I.

39 Harvard University, Baker Library [henceforth BL]: R. G. Dun & Co. MSS, vol. 340, p. 49, 18 Mar. 1851.

40 Riggs, J. B., The Riggs Family of Maryland (Baltimore, 1939), especially p. 298Google Scholar; Dictionary of American Biography, article on Riggs, G. W.; Hidy, M. E., George Peabody Merchant and Financier 1829–1854 (New York, 1978); BoE: BE Liverpool letter books, 1850, p. 55.Google Scholar

41 BoE: BE Liverpool letter books, 1843, p. 381. Williams, D. M., ‘Liverpool merchants and the cotton trade 1820–1850’, in Harris, J. R. (ed.), Liverpool and Merseyside (London, 1969).Google Scholar

42 Rothschild Archive, London [hereafter RAL]: Belmont letters, T54/92, 12 Sep. 1839.

43 RAL; T55/117, 3 Oct. 1859; BoE: BE Liverpool letter books, 1840, p. 55.

44 Chapman, S. D., Rise of Merchant Banking (London, 1984), pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

45 RAL: T58/35, 18 Nov. 1869.

46 BL: R. G. Dun MSS, vol. 340, p. 49, 24 Aug. 1858, 21 Feb. 1859. Similar unqualified praise was recorded to the end of 1869.

47 Perkin, E. J., Financing Anglo-American Trade. The House of Brown 1800–1880 (London, 1975), p. 209; BL: R. G. Dun MSS, vol. 340, p. IV, 30 Dec. 1867, 5 Aug. 1869.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Chapman, , Merchant Enterprise, pp. 90–1.Google Scholar

49 Farnie, , Cotton Industry, pp. 313–38.Google Scholar

50 Rathbone, W. VI, A Sketch of Family History (1894), p. 29.Google Scholar

51 BoE: BE C5/282, pp. 32–3; for Henry's and Crafts & Stell, see sources cited in footnote 31.

52 Chapman, , Merchant Enterprise, pp. 218–19.Google Scholar

53 For Campbell see Ellison, T., Reminiscences and Cleanings (Liverpool, 1905) and the same author's Cotton Trade, pp. 191–2. The son's inheritance included valuable landed estate in the commercial heart of Liverpool.Google Scholar

54 BL: R. G. Dun MSS.