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¹¹ Sayers, , Bank of England, vol. I, pp. 253–9.Google Scholar

¹² Bank of England, London, Archive [henceforth BoE]: Securities Management Trust Papers [henceforth SMT]; 2/240, Correspondence 1928–29; Bamberg, J. H., The government, the banks and the Lancashire cotton industry, 1918–39, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Cambridge University, 1984), pp. 64–81, 91.Google Scholar

¹³ Garside, W. R., British Unemployment, 1919–1939; A Study in Public Policy (Cambridge, 1990), ch. 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ R. Boothby and others, Industry and the State: A Conservative View (London, 1927)Google Scholar; Clay, H., The Post-War Unemployment Problem (London, 1929), pp. 180–205Google Scholar; Economist, 12 Jan. 1929, p. 47; , Labour and the Nation (London, 1929), pp. 25–9.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Public Record Office, Kew, London [henceforth PRO]: Cabinet Office Papers [henceforth CAB]; 58/134, CR(CI)37, Committee of Civil Research, Sub-Committee on the Cotton Industry, Evidence of representatives of the Lancashire Cotton Corporation, 21 Nov. 1929; PRO: Treasury Papers [henceforth T]; 161/656/833094, Memorandum by Niemeyer (Treasury Official), 27 Jun. 1927.

¹⁶ See correspondence in BoE: SMT 2/280 and 2/281. Also: Slaven, , ‘Self-liquidation’, pp. 127–31.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Sayers, , Bank of England, vol. I, pp. 324–5.Google Scholar

¹⁸ ibid., pp. 324–7; Committee on Finance and Industry (Macmillan Committee), Minutes of Evidence, 2 vols (London, 1931), vol. I, qq. 828–59Google Scholar; Lucas, A. F., ‘The Bankers' Industrial Development Company’, Harvard Business Review, 11 (1932–1933), pp. 273–4.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Carr, J. C. and Taplin, W., History of the British Steel Industry (Oxford, 1962), pp. 443–5.Google Scholar

²⁰ On the BIDC's formation see Thomas, S. E., British Banks and the Finance of Industry (London, 1931), pp. 279–81Google Scholar; Macmillan Committee, Minutes of Evidence, vol. II, qq. 9027–184; BoE: SMT 2/53, Correspondence from Spring 1930.Google Scholar

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²² Campbell, R. H., The Rise and Fall of Scottish Industry, 1707–1939 (Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 170–2Google Scholar; Hume, J. R. and Moss, M., Beardmore: The History of a Scottish Industrial Giant (London, 1979), pp. 220–2.Google Scholar

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²⁴ Bamberg, , ‘Government, the banks’, pp. 165–224Google Scholar; Greaves, J. I., Industrial rationalisation and government policy in interwar Britain, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of Birmingham, 1992), pp. 505–18.Google Scholar

²⁵ Tolliday, , Business, Banking and Politics, p. 204.Google Scholar

²⁶ See generally, ibid., pp. 189–247.

²⁷ For an overview on the types of industrial action then favoured see Lucas, A. F., Industrial Reconstruction and the Control of Competition (London, 1937).Google Scholar

²⁸ Clay, , Lord Norman, pp. 346–7Google Scholar; Scopes, F., The Development of the Corby Works (Stewarts and Lloyds Ltd, 1968), pp. 80–7.Google Scholar

²⁹ BoE: BID 1/5, Board Minutes, 9 Jan. 1934; Economist, 25 Aug. 1934, pp. 365–6.

³⁰ Clay, , Lord Norman, pp. 347–9Google Scholar; Sayers, , Bank of England, vol. II, pp. 548–50.Google Scholar

³¹ Tolliday, S., ‘Steel and rationalisation policies, 1918–50’, in Elbaum, B. and Lazonick, W. (eds), The Decline of the British Economy (Oxford, 1986), pp. 90–1.Google Scholar

³² BoE: SMT 2/61, Various correspondence; Statist, 18 Mar. 1933, p. 411.

³³ PRO: Board of Trade Papers [henceforth BT]; 55/51/RCI 1, Minute by Sir Horace Wilson (the Government's Chief Industrial Adviser), 7 Mar. 1934; PRO: BT 64/3/I.M.651/33, ‘Note’, by Browett (Board of Trade Official), 7 Jul. 1933 and Minute by Wilson, 8 Nov. 1933; BT 64/6/I.M.699/34, Minute by Watkinson (Board of Trade Official), n.d.; PRO: CAB 24/253, CP 16(35), ‘Cotton spinning redundancy scheme’, Memorandum by the President of the Board of Trade, 21 Jan. 1935.

³⁴ See correspondence in BoE: SMT 2/276; BoE: BID 1/28, 1/30, 1/33; PRO: BT 55/51/RCI 1; PRO: BT 64/3/I.M.651/33; BT 64/7/I.M.2988/34.

³⁵ Macmillan Committee, Minutes of Evidence, vol. I, q. 3317.

³⁶ PRO: CAB 58/131, EAC(I & S)100, Economic Advisory Council, Committee on the Iron and Steel Industry, Evidence of Montagu Norman, 21 Mar. 1930.

³⁷ PRO: Ramsay MacDonald Papers, PRO 30/69/412, ‘Note of a meeting between the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Trade and the Governor of the Bank of England on the iron and steel industry’, 11 May 1931.

³⁸ Macmillan Committee, Minutes of Evidence, vol. II, qq. 9156–67.

³⁹ See generally Williams, D., ‘Montagu Norman and banking policy in the 1920s’, Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, 11 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁰ BoE: BID 1/4, Board Minutes, 18 Nov. 1930; BID 1/10, ‘Memorandum’, by Nigel Campbell, 28 Oct. 1931.

⁴¹ e.g. BoE: SMT 2/273, Norman to Lord Hyndley, 24 Oct. 1935; BoE: SMT 6/7, F. Hodges (of the SMT) to W. J. Thomas, 23 Sept. 1930.

⁴² PRO: CAB 24/202, CP 57(29), ‘Government assistance to rationalisation’, Note by the President of the Board of Trade, 24 Feb. 1929; PRO: CAB 27/374, UP(28)7, Unemployment Policy Committee, Draft Report, 21 Jul. 1928, pp. 6–7.

⁴³ PRO: CAB 27/374, UP(28), Minutes of the 2nd and 3rd meetings of the Unemployment Policy Committee, 18 and 23 Jul. 1928; BoE: Governor's Files [henceforth G]; 14/55, Minutes of the Committee of Treasury, 20 Feb. 1929; Jones, T., Whitehall Diary, vol. II: 1926–30, edited by Middlemas, K. (Oxford, 1969), p. 174.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ BoE: SMT 2/46, Norman to Leith-Ross (Treasury), 11 Mar. 1930; SMT 2/72, Norman to Peacock (a member of the Court of the Bank), 7 Oct. 1929.

⁴⁵ Beer, S. H., Modern British Politics (2nd edn.London, 1969), pp. 277–301Google Scholar; Davies, E., ‘National’ Capitalism: Tlte National Government's Record as a Protector of Private Monopoly (London, 1939).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ PRO: BT 64/7/I.M. 3653/34, ‘House of Lords, rationalisation of industry’, Note by the Board of Trade, 26 Oct. 1934; PRO: CAB 24/256, CP 150(35), ‘Statement by His Majesty's Government on certain proposals submitted to them by Mr Lloyd-George’, Jul. 1935, p. 22.

⁴⁷ Truptil, R. J., British Banks and the London Money Market (London, 1936), p. 286.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ BoE: SMT 9/4, House Meeting of Securities Management Trust, 1 Jan. 1934.

⁴⁹ BoE: BID 1/6, ‘BID’, Unsigned memorandum, 1934.

⁵⁰ BoE: BID 1/28, ‘Meeting at the Bank’, 13 Jan. 1934; BoE: SMT 9/3, House Meeting, 22 May 1933.

⁵¹ e.g. PRO: CAB 58/135, EAC(CI)88, Economic Advisory Council, Committee on the Cotton Industry, Evidence of Montagu Norman, 11 Apr. 1930.

⁵² BoE: BID 1/28, ‘The demand for legal compulsion in the cotton industry’, Memorandum by Henry Clay (of the SMT), 3 Jan. 1934; PRO: BT 64/7/I.M. 2988/34, ‘Report on the cotton position’, by Campbell, 5 Dec. 1934.

⁵³ Middlemas, K. and Barnes, J., Baldwin: A Biography (London, 1969), p. 464Google Scholar; BoE: G 14/55, Extract of a memorandum of an interview between the Governor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 4 Sept. 1929.

⁵⁴ BoE: SMT 2/73, ‘Memorandum on a visit to see the President of the Board of Trade’ (by Charles Bruce-Gardner, Managing Director of the SMT and BIDC board member), 13 Jul. 1931; PRO: CAB 23/66, Cabinet Minutes, 22 Apr. 1931 and CAB 23/67, Cabinet Minutes, 6 May 1931.

⁵⁵ BoE: BID 1/28, ‘Cotton’, Memorandum by Bruce-Gardner, 11 Dec. 1933; PRO: BT 55/51 RCI 1, ‘Note’, by Wilson, 3 Jan. 1934.

⁵⁶ BoE: G 14/55, ‘Rationalisation’, Memorandum by E. D. H. Skinner (Norman's personal assistant), 2 Feb. 1939.

⁵⁷ BoE: G 14/55 and G 14/62, Correspondence from 1938–39.

⁵⁸ See the views of Ryan, J. (LCC director) in MacGregor, D. H. et al. , ‘Problems of rationalisation: a discussion’, Economic Journal, 40 (1930), p. 363.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ PRO: BT 56/34/CIA/1768/22, Note by Hale (government official), 22 Jan. 1931.

⁶⁰ Bamberg, , ‘Government, the banks’, pp. 70–77, 82–164, 297–334.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Tolliday, , Business, Banking and Politics, pp. 115–23, 224–30, 235, 248–68.Google Scholar

⁶² See: Cotton Spinning Industry Act 1936, Annual Reports of the Spindles Board, Cmd. 5579, Cmd. 5873, Cmd. 6157 (London, 1937–401940)Google Scholar; Slaven, , ‘Self-liquidation’, pp. 131–6Google Scholar; Shimmin, A. N., ‘The wool textile industry’, in British Association, Britain in Recovery (London, 1938), pp. 461–74.Google Scholar

⁶³ BoE: G 14/55, Informal Court Records, 21 Nov. 1929; Sayers, , Bank af England, vol. I, pp. 326, 330.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ House of Commons, Debates, 5th series, vol. 308, cols 73–87, 4 Feb. 1936. A further Act was passed on cotton reorganisation in 1939, but its provisions merely created machinery to establish minimum prices and to extend compulsory levy schemes to other producer sections.

⁶⁵ BoE: SMT 3/90, ‘The iron and steel industry’, Note by Bruce-Gardner, 24 Feb. 1933; BoE: SMT 9/3, House Meetings, Sept. 1932 to Jan. 1933.

⁶⁶ PRO: T 160/244/F9385, Memorandum by Phillips (Treasury), 18 Jul. 1928. On the extent of bank overdrafts see Balogh, T., Studies in Financial Organisation (Cambridge, 1947), pp. 77–8Google Scholar; Thomas, , Finance of British Industry, pp. 60–5.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ BoE: SMT 2/72, Norman to Peacock, 28 Nov. 1928.

⁶⁸ Greaves, , ‘Industrial rationalisation’, pp. 94–5, 287, 512Google Scholar. On cotton spinning see Daniels, G. W. and Jewkes, J., ‘The post-war depression in the Lancashire cotton industry’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 91 (1928).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁹ BoE: SMT 2/72, Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland (Minister of Labour) to Norman, 21 Nov. 1928; PRO: BT 197/6, A.C. 190, Draft minutes of the 8ist meeting of the Advisory Council to the Board of Trade, 6 Jun. 1928; Collins, , Banks and Industrial Finance, pp. 69–77, 79–82Google Scholar. See also Ross, D. M., ‘The clearing banks and industry – new perspectives on the inter-war years’, in Van Helten, J. J. and Cassis, Y. (eds), Capitalism in a Mature Economy: Financial Institutions, Capital Exports and British Industry, 1880–1939 (Aldershot, 1990).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ BoE: SMT 2/46, Norman to Warren Fisher, 20 Jun. 1929; SMT 2/72, Norman to Mr Colegate (draft letter, n.d.).

⁷¹ PRO: BT 56/31/CIA/1768/4, Correspondence between S. S. Hammerseley (a leading spinner) and Bruce-Gardner, Jul. 1930; Clay, H., ‘Rationalisation in the cotton trade’, Lloyds Bank Review (02 1931), pp. 87–94.Google Scholar

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⁷³ e.g. Economist, 19 Apr. 1930, pp. 875–6.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Macmillan Committee, Minutes of Evidence, vol. II, qq. 9049–56. The BIDC board itself was drawn largely from the principal merchant banks.

⁷⁵ Collins, , Banks and Industrial Finance, pp. 82–6Google Scholar; Grant, T. D. K., A Study of the Capital Market in Post-War Britain (London, 1937), pp. 154–5.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ BoE: SMT 2/56, Memorandum by Campbell, 4 Jul. 1932.

⁷⁷ BoE: SMT 9/1, Memorandum by Campbell, 3 Nov. 1930.

⁷⁸ BoE: BID 1/4, Board Minutes, 4 Nov. 1930 and 22 Apr. 1931; BoE: SMT 2/55, ‘Memorandum’, by Bruce-Gardner, 17 Apr. 1931.

⁷⁹ BoE: G 14/55, Minutes of the Committee of Treasury, 17 Dec. 1930; BoE: SMT 9/1, House Meeting, 29 Sept. 1930.

⁸⁰ BoE: BID 1/4, Board Minutes, 18 Nov. and 16 Dec. 1930; BoE: SMT 2/56, ‘Memorandum’, by Pam (BIDC director), 18 Jul. 1932.

⁸¹ Macmillan Committee, Minutes of Evidence, vol. I, q. 829.

⁸² On the problems created by disengagement in steel see Tolliday, , Business, Banking and Politics, pp. 231–5, 238–47.Google Scholar

⁸³ ibid., pp. 115–23, 224–30, 235, 248–68.

⁸⁴ BoE: G 14/62, Memorandum by Clay, 3 Apr. 1939.

⁸⁵ Schubert, A., The Credit-Anstalt Crisis of 1931 (Cambridge, 1991).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Garside, , British Unemployment, pp. 220–35.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ See Greaves, ‘Industrial rationalisation’, ch. 1.

⁸⁸ BoE: SMT 2/154, ‘Memorandum on regionalisation of British iron and steel industry by H. Brassert & Co. Ltd.’, 10 Jan. 1930; SMT 2/215, ‘Report on the structure of the iron and steel industry of Great Britain incorporating plans for rationalisation’, by C. Bruce-Gardner, 31 Dec. 1930. See also Tolliday, Business, Banking and Politics, tables 5 and 6; Vaizey, J., The British Steel Industry (London, 1974), PP. 52–3.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ e.g. PRO: BT 56/31/CIA/1768/4, ‘Scheme for the rationalisation of the Egyptian cotton spinning trade submitted to the Bankers’ Industrial Development Company Ltd. by the merger committee constituted by resolution dated 5 November 1929’; BT 56/33/CIA/1768/14, Allied Spinners' Scheme, 14 May 1931.

⁹⁰ For examples of the Bank's resultant confusion on cotton see BoE: BID 1/26, ‘The British Cotton Industry’, Notes by Sir James Cooper (of SMT), 23 Jan. 1931; BoE: SMT 3/31, Memorandum by Bruce-Gardner, 3 Jan. 1931; SMT 9/1, House Meetings, 24 Nov. to 29 Dec. 1930; Clay, H., Report on the Position of the English Cotton Industry (London, 1931).Google Scholar

⁹¹ For a long-term analysis see Lorenz, E. H., ‘An evolutionary explanation for competitive decline: the British shipbuilding industry, 1890–1970’, Journal of Economic History, 51 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹² Dintenfass, M., The TUC, the FBI and British economic policy between the wars: the question of a producers' alliance, unpublished M.Phil, thesis (University of Warwick, 1980), pp. 171–3, 255–8, 270–2Google Scholar; Jones, L., Shipbuilding in Britain: Mainly Between the Two World Wars (Cardiff, 1957), pp. 132–3Google Scholar; Reid, J. M., James Lithgow: Master of Work (London, 1964), pp. 129–30.Google Scholar

⁹³ PRO: BT 56/33/CIA/1768/20, ‘Statement of the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners’ Associations Ltd., to be submitted to the President of the Board of Trade and the Home Secretary on Wednesday 22nd October 1930’; BT 56/36/CIA/1768/71, Ashurst (Secretary of the Cotton Spinners' and Manufactures' Association) to Wilson, 29 Jul. 1931; Garside, British Unemployment, chs 8 and 10; Rodgers, T. W., Work and welfare: the National Confederation of Employers' Organisations and the unemployment problem, 1919–1936, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 79–90Google Scholar; Federation of British Industries, Industry and the Nation (London, 1931).Google ScholarPubMed

⁹⁴ Federation of British Industries Papers, University of Warwick, F/3/S1/19/1, Meetings of the FBI Committee on Industry and Finance, 13 Nov. 1929 to 10 Feb. 1930.

⁹⁵ BoE: SMT 3/73, Sir William Larke (of the National Federation of Iron and Steel Manufacturers) to Bruce-Gardner, 17 Apr. 1930; PRO: CAB 58/143, ‘Note of an iron and steel conference’, 21 Jul. 1930; Burn, D. L., The Economic History of Steelmaking, 1867–1939: A Study in Competition (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 450–2Google Scholar; Payne, P. L., Colvilles and the Scottish Steel Industry (Oxford, 1979), pp. 170–206Google Scholar; Carr, and Taplin, , History, p. 447Google Scholar; Tolliday, , Business, Banking and Politics, pp. 70–8, 220–1.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ It is a theme, however, taken up in W. R. Garside and J. I. Greaves, ‘Rationalisation and Britain's industrial malaise: the 1920s revisited’ (forthcoming).

⁹⁷ This argument is in line with other recent studies of Bank activities, e.g. Bowden and Collins, ‘The Bank of England’.