Commercial fraud and public men in Victorian Britain

Historical Research

Volumn 78, Issue 200, 2005, Pages 230-252

  Taylor, James ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HULL   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33750124126     PISSN: 09503471     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00234.x     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. G. Robb, White-Collar Crime in Modern England: Financial Fraud and Business Morality, 1845-1929 (Cambridge, 1992);
2. G. R. Searle, Morality and the Market in Victorian Britain (Oxford, 1998);
3. J. Garnett, 'Commercial ethics: a Victorian perspective on the practice of theory', in Business Ethics: Perspectives on the Practice of Theory, ed. C. Cowton and R. Crisp (Oxford, 1998), pp. 117-38;
4. P. Johnson, 'Civilizing mammon: laws, morals, and the City in 19th-century England', in Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas, ed. P. Burke, B. Harrison and P. Slack (Oxford, 2000), pp. 301-19;
5. S. Wilson, 'In defence of respectability: financial crime, the "high art" criminal and the language of the courtroom 1850-80', in The Golden Age: Essays in British Social and Economic History, 1850-70, ed. I. Inkster (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 199-215;
6. G. Wilson and S. Wilson, 'Responsible risk-takers: notions of directorial responsibility - past, present and future', Jour. Corporate Law Studies, i (2001), 211-33.
7. For an account of this process, see J. Taylor, '"Wealth makes worship": attitudes to joint stock enterprise in British law, politics, and culture, c. 1800-c. 1870' (unpublished University of Kent Ph.D. thesis, 2002), chs. 3-4.
8. For details of railway fraud, see Robb, ch. 2; R. W. Kostal, Law and English Railway Capitalism, 1825-75 (Oxford, 1994).
9. For potted histories of a number of frauds in the 1850s, see D. M. Evans, Facts, Failures and Frauds (1st edn., 1859; New York, 1968).
10. See, e.g., H. Spencer, 'Railway morals and railway policy', Edinburgh Rev., c (1854), 420-61;
11. J. W. Gilbart, The Moral and Religious Duties of Public Companies (1856).
12. Wilson and Wilson, pp. 220-1.
13. Robb, ch. 7.
14. Johnson, p. 319.
15. Robb, p. 165.
16. Wilson, 'In defence of respectability', p. 212.
17. They sat on the board for the following periods: Macgregor, 1849-53; Pellatt, 1849-50; Brown, 1853-6; Stapleton, 1855-6; Kennedy, 1849-50 and 1854-6.
18. These accusations appeared in the Joint Stock Companies' Journal (see esp. 10 May 1856, pp. 328-9; 17 May 1856, p. 344; 12 July 1856, pp. 8-9). They later proved to be well founded.
19. Letter to The Times, 16 Sept. 1856, p. 7.
20. The Times, 4 Sept. 1856, p. 8.
21. People's Paper, 6 Sept. 1856, p. 3.
22. Morning Advertiser, 4 Sept. 1856, p. 6.
23. People's Paper, 6 Sept. 1856, p. 3.
24. People's Paper, 6 Sept. 1856, p. 3.
25. People's Paper, 6 Sept. 1856, p. 3.
26. Daily News, 5 Sept. 1856, p. 4.
27. Daily Telegraph, 6 Sept. 1856, p. 3.
28. Reynolds's Newspaper, 7 Sept. 1856, p. 16.
29. Weekly Dispatch, 7 Sept. 1856, p. 5.
30. Leeds Mercury, 6 Nov. 1856, p. 4;
31. Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, 9 Nov. 1856, p. 6.
32. Letter to The Times, 2 Jan. 1857, p. 5.
33. The Times, 6 March 1857, p. 7.
34. Morning Advertiser, 18 Feb. 1857, p. 4.
35. The following were examined: Edward Esdaile (11, 18, 25 March); Apsley Pellatt (1 Apr.); John Stapleton (8, 22 Apr.); Thomas Page (27 Apr.); Thomas Chandler (27 Apr.); William Craufurd (27 Apr.); Humphrey Brown (29 Apr.).
36. Daily Telegraph, 30 Apr. 1857, p. 3.
37. The laughter became so frequent that by April the Bankers' Circular was moved to remark: 'Another scene in the Comedy of the Royal British Bank came off on Wednesday, at the Bankruptcy Court' (Bankers' Circular, 4 Apr. 1857, p. 634).
38. K. Marx, 'The British wild-cats', New York Daily Tribune, 16 May 1857, repr. in K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works (48 vols., 1975-2001), xv. 266-9, at p. 266.
39. Illustrated London News, 2 May 1857, p. 408;
40. Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, 3 May 1857, p. 6.
41. Morning Herald, 30 March 1857, p. 4;
42. News of the World, 5 Apr. 1857, p. 4;
43. Punch, 21 March 1857, p. 117;
44. Town Talk, Christmas supplement, 'City number', 1858, pp. 1-8.
45. For examinations of the themes of speculation and bankruptcy in Victorian fiction, see B. Weiss, The Hell of the English: Bankruptcy and the Victorian Novel (Lewisburg, Pa., 1986);
46. N. Russell, The Novelist and Mammon: Literary Responses to the World of Commerce in the 19th Century (Oxford, 1986).
47. Garnett, pp. 123-5.
48. These works appeared in 1850 and 1851 respectively. For further comment on these novels, see G. Smith and A. Smith, 'Dickens as a popular artist', Dickensian, lxvii (1971), 131-44.
49. Little Dorrit was serialized between Dec. 1855 and June 1857; Dudley Costello's The Joint-Stock Banker first appeared in Bentley's Miscellany between Apr. and Oct. 1856; and Charles Lever's Davenport Dunn was serialized between July 1857 and Apr. 1859.
50. T. L. Alborn, 'The moral of the failed bank: professional plots in the Victorian money market', Victorian Studies, xxxviii (1995), 199-226, at pp. 212, 214.
51. Daily News, 13 March 1857, p. 4.
52. Weekly Dispatch, 5 Apr. 1857, p. 9.
53. Law Times, 18 Apr. 1857, p. 51.
54. For similar views, see Morning Post, 16 March 1857, p. 4;
55. Morning Advertiser, 25 Apr. 1857, p. 4.
56. G. R. Searle, Entrepreneurial Politics in Mid-Victorian Britain (Oxford, 1993), ch. 3.
57. Searle, Entrepreneurial Politics, pp. 93, 97.
58. Bankers' Circular, 27 Sept. 1856, p. 200.
59. Letter to The Times, 26 Sept. 1856, p. 10.
60. Morning Post, 24 Sept. 1856, p. 4.
61. Letter to the Daily Telegraph, 11 Oct. 1856, p. 3. Edward Mullins was the company's solicitor.
62. He had been elected by the voters of Berwick in 1852, but was unseated on petition the following year for bribery (F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-85 (1977), p. 41).
63. Glasgow Herald, 18 Feb. 1857, p. 4;
64. Glasgow Chronicle, 28 Jan. 1857, p. 4.
65. Glasgow Herald, 25 Feb. 1857, p. 4;
66. Glasgow Chronicle, 25 Feb. 1857, p. 4.
67. Glasgow Chronicle, 29 Apr. 1857, p. 4.
68. See the People's Paper, 13 June 1857, p. 3, for an account of how Brown had bought the favour of his constituents when first elected for the seat.
69. Craig, p. 303.
70. See also Weekly Dispatch, 5 Apr. 1857, p. 9.
71. Craig, p. 16.
72. Evans, pp. 384-6.
73. Daily Telegraph, 1 March 1858, p. 3;
74. Illustrated London News, 6 March 1858, p. 227;
75. People's Paper, 6 March 1858, p. 4.
76. Law Times, 24 Apr. 1858, p. 65.
77. Morning Advertiser, 13 Feb. 1858, p. 4.
78. Craig, p. 17.
79. Craig, p. 303.
80. Evans, p. 382.
81. Weekly Dispatch, 26 Apr. 1857, p. 9.
82. Craig, p. 41.
83. He was defeated once more in 1874 (Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, ed. M. Stenton and S. Lees (4 vols., Hassocks, 1976-81), i, p. 362).
84. The Times, 3 March 1858, p. 7;
85. haw Times, 5 March 1859, p. 284.
86. When released, Henry Dunning Macleod continued his career as a lawyer and economist, and while his works on economics were widely read, as a result of his involvement with the British Bank he was shunned by the establishment and never received a university chair (Who's Who in Economics, ed. M. Blaug and P. Sturges (Brighton, 1983), p. 259).
87. Robb, pp. 64-5.
88. Bankers' Circular, 24 Apr. 1858, p. 300.
89. The Times, 2 Apr. 1861, p. 9; 21 March 1862, p. 6; 4 June 1867, p. 13.
90. The Times, 5 June 1867, p. 11; 18 Nov. 1872, p. 8.
91. The Times, 21 June 1876, p. 7; 24 June 1876, p. 14.
92. The Times, 27 Aug. 1879, p. 6.
93. The Times, 23 May 1894, p. 10.
94. The Times, 14 May 1895, p. 10.
95. For a summary of the case, see Evans, pp. 596-630.
96. The Times, 13 Apr. 1863, p. 11.
97. Letter to The Times, 31 Jan. 1860, p. 9.
98. The Times, 30 June 1864, p. 13.
99. The Times, 3 March 1865, p. 12.
100. P. L. Cottrell, 'Albert Grant', in Dictionary of Business Biography, ed. D.J. Jeremy (5 vols., 1984-6), ii. 623-9, at p. 623.
101. Robb, p. 101.
102. Cottrell, 'Albert Grant', p. 627.
103. Stenton, i. 163.
104. The Times, 31 Aug. 1899, p. 4.
105. For contemporary views on this, see the Law Times, 26 Sept. 1857, p. 13;
106. See the discussions in parliament on the Western Bank of Scotland and Overend, Gurney, and Co. cases (Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., cxlix, cols. 1194-1220 (16 Apr. 1858); cxcvii, cols. 821-3, 975-95, 1194-1200 (30 June, 1 July, 5 July 1869)).
107. See, e.g., the comments of The Economist following the Overend, Gurney, and Co. trial (The Economist, 25 Dec. 1869, p. 1522).