Office Workers, Business Elites and the Disappearance of the 'Ladder of Success' in Edwardian Glasgow

Journal of Scottish Historical Studies

Volumn 19, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 55-75

  Wilson, R Guerriero ^a  

^a University of Sthling   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CITY; COMMERCIAL PHENOMENA; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; EMPLOYMENT; ETHNOLOGY; HEALTH; HISTORY; LEGAL ASPECT; MOTIVATION; OCCUPATION; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIAL CLASS; UNITED KINGDOM; URBAN POPULATION;

ASPIRATIONS (PSYCHOLOGY); CITIES; COMMERCE; EMPLOYMENT; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; OCCUPATIONS; SCOTLAND; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIAL MOBILITY; URBAN HEALTH; URBAN POPULATION;

EID: 84864552887     PISSN: 1748538X     EISSN: 17551749     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3366/sesh.1999.19.1.55     Document Type: Note

References (36)

1. On the late 19th century as a period of change in economy and society see HJ. Perkin, The Rise of Professional Society: England since 1880 (1989), and J.E Wilson British Business History (Manchester, 1995), chapter 4. for accounts of the same period in the United States, see A.D. Chandler, 77k Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, MA, 1977), and O. Zunz, Making America Corporate: 1870-1920 (Chicago, 1990), p.4.
2. For the discussion of the feminization of office work see G. Anderson (ed.), The White Blouse Revolution (Manchester, 1988), S. Hartman Strom, Beyond the Typewriter (Urbana, IL, 1992), A. Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Busmess (Baltimore, MD, 1994). On proletarianization see D. Lockwood, 77k Blackcoated Worker (1958), H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York, 1974), R. Crompton and G. Jones, White-Cottar Proletariat (1984).
3. G. Anderson, Victorian Clerks (Manchester, 1976), p. 20.
4. In the 12th Decennial Census of Scotland, 1911, the total number of male 'commercial clerks' decreased slighdy from 12,850 to 12,684 but this represented a decline in the percentage of men in the clerical workforce from 72% to 60%.
5. R. Guerriero Wilson, Disillusionment or New Opportunities? The Changing Nature of Work in Offices: Glasgow, 1880-1914 (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 218-224.
6. In 1881 women were 3.4% (5.0% in Glasgow) of the total in the occupational category 'commercial clerks' in Great Britain. By 1911 this percentage had increased to 26.7 (39.7% in Glasgow). Direct comparison of figures for the rest of the twentieth century is not possible due to changes in the census categories. Nonetheless, the feminization of clerical work remains unmistakable in the new occupational category of 'clerical workers'. By 1951, 58% of the total population in this group were women. By 1981 women were 76% of this total. Sources: G. Routh, Occupations of the People of Great Britain, 1801-1981, (1987), p. 74, and 12th Decennial Census of Scotland, 1881,1911.
7. Scottish Clerks' Association, Clerk's Gazette, Jun. 1895, p. 66.
8. W. Jacks, 'An address to clerks', delivered to a meeting of the Scottish Clerks' Association, Dec. 1887, reprinted in the Clerks' Gazette, 31 Aug. 1896, pp. 39-40.
9. W. Jacks, Singles from Life's Gatherings, (Glasgow, 1902), p. 93.
10. S. Smiles, Self-Help, Library of Management Classics (1859, 1986), p. 170
11. 77k Clerk's Gazette, article on 'membership' (of the Scottish Clerks' Association), 29Jun. 1895, p. 66.
12. J.C. Stewart, Pioneers of a Profession: Chartered Accountants to 1879 (Edinburgh, 1977), pp. 7-15. The Royal Charter was given to the Glasgow Society of Accountants in 1855, but according to Stewart, it wasn't until well into the 1880s that independent auditing became an important part of chartered accountants' work.
13. A.D. Provand, M.P., 'Commercial education', a lecture delivered to the Scottish Clerk's association, 18 Mar. 1895, printed in 77k Clerks' Gazette, 30 Apr. 1895, p. 48.
14. A.D. Provand, lecture, Clerk's Gazette, printed Apr. 1895.
15. T Berrie, address, Clerks' Gazette, printed Sep. 1895, p. 102.
16. Glasgow University Archives Business Record Centre, Scottish Clerks' Association papers, UGD303, 'Report ofthe Committee… to revise the rules', 12 May 1893, p. 7. Printed booklet of the report inserted in Association Minutes at 8 Dec. 1894. This provision in the rules is restated elsewhere from time to time, e.g. Report of the 'Autumn meeting of the general council', held 5 Oct. 1901.
17. J.H. Jones, 'University Training for Commerce and Administration', Proceedings of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, XLV (1913-14), p. 178.
18. S. and O. Checkland, Industry and Ethos: Scotland 1832-1914, The New History of Scotland, no. 7 (1984), p. 21.
19. An example can be seen in the shipbuilding and engineering firm of Barclay Curie and Co. which had been founded in 1818 byJohn Barclay. Robert Curie joined in 1845. In 1857 Andrew MacLean and Archibald Gilchrist joined and it was the sons of MacLean and Gilchrist who were running the company on the eve of the First World War. See A. Slaven and S. Checkland, eds., Dictionary ofScottish Business Biography, 1860-1960, Volume 1: Staple Industries (Aberdeen, 1986), p. 218. 04), p. 10.
20. Strathclyde University Archives, Glasgow Athenaeum Commercial College Papers, MS H2, Speech to students at annual presentation of prizes and certificates, Annual Report (1907—08), p. 11.
21. F.D. Klingender, 77k Condition of Clerical Labor in Britain (1935), p. 23.
22. G. Eyre-Todd, compiler, Who's Who in Glasgow in 1909 (Glasgow, 1909).
23. Ibid., 'Preface'.
24. For one discussion of the supposedly egalitarian nature of Scottish society see A.A. Maclaren, 'Introduction: An open society?', in Maclaren (ed.), Social Class in Scotland: Past ami PreserU (Edmburfih, 1976).
25. Guerriero Wilson, Disillusionment or New Opportunities, pp. 65-76.
26. Ibid., pp. 97-98.
27. R.H. Trainor, 'The Elite', in W.H. Eraser and I. Maver (eds.), Glasgow, Volume II, 1830-1912 (Manchester, 1996), p. 237.
28. Stewart, Pioneers ofa Profession, pp. 2—4.
29. See S. Nenadic, 'Businessmen, the Urban Middle Classes, and the "Dominance" of Manufacturers in Nineteenth-Century Britain', Economic History Review,X12V,l (1991), pp. 66-85, for a discussion of the importance of perception and the possibly disproportionate influence of manufacturers in their own times and in subsequent historiography.
30. WS. Murphy, Captains of Industry (Glasgow, 1901).
31. Strathclyde Regional Archives, Barclay Curie and Company Papers, TD265 Directors' Minutebooks, 1884—1912, and bundle of papers 'correspondence on staff matters', 1905-06. Glasgow Post Office Directories, 1884-1912.
32. Checklands, Industry and Ethos, pp. 177-78.
33. M. Weber, Wirtschaß and Gesellschaß, 'VII, Class, Status, Party' in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (trans, and eds.), FromMax Weber: Essays in Sociology (1946; 6th printing, New York, 1963), p. 188. See also Checklands, Industry and Ethos, p. 175, noting that these families were also linked by marriage to some extent.
34. 'Civil Service boy clerks - revised regulations', and also 'The Civil Service-assistant clerks', Glasgow Herald, (19 Dec. 1912), p. 9, and 3 Sep. 1913, p.5.
35. Strathclyde University Archives, Glasgow Athenaeum Commercial College Papers, MS H2, H. Craik, address 29 Nov. 1904, printed in Annual Report (1903-04), p. 10.
36. Letter to the Editor, Glasgow Herald (19Jun. 1908), p. 5.