In the decades before 1914, the City of London was the premier international financial centre. However, this position was not long maintained, other industrial nations quickly and effectively challenged the influence of Britain, and following the disruption of the world markets caused by World War I and the Great Depression of the 1930s, international hegemony slipped away for ever.The relationship of bankers and industrialists has often been
cited as a key factor in this decline. Critics of the banks claim that, even before World War I, there were serious deficiencies in the financial provision provided by banks to the domestic industrial
sector, and that these deficiencies handicapped Britain's competitive advantage in world markets, leading to the decline of their influence and power.This book examines these claims, and bringing to bear important new data that presents the debate in a novel and revealing framework, expounds an economic rationale for historical bank behaviour. Using a rich source of contemporary records, it presents a series of micro-economic studies into commercial bank assets and
liabilities, financial crises, bank mergers, the professionalization of banking, the organization and conduct of the industrial loan business, and the nature of bank support given to industrial
clients.The result is a new, authoritative interpretation of bank-industry relations in the half-century before World War I.
In the decades before 1914, the City of London was the premier international financial centre. However, this position was not long maintained, other industrial nations quickly and effectively challenged the influence of Britain, and following the disruption of the world markets caused by World War I and the Great Depression of the 1930s, international hegemony slipped away for ever.The relationship of bankers and industrialists has often been
cited as a key factor in this decline. Critics of the banks claim that, even before World War I, there were serious deficiencies in the financial provision provided by banks to the domestic industrial
sector, and that these deficiencies handicapped Britain's competitive advantage in world markets, leading to the decline of their influence and power.This book examines these claims, and bringing to bear important new data that presents the debate in a novel and revealing framework, expounds an economic rationale for historical bank behaviour. Using a rich source of contemporary records, it presents a series of micro-economic studies into commercial bank assets and
liabilities, financial crises, bank mergers, the professionalization of banking, the organization and conduct of the industrial loan business, and the nature of bank support given to industrial
clients.The result is a new, authoritative interpretation of bank-industry relations in the half-century before World War I.
1: The Relationship between Finance and Industry in Britain
2: Comparative European Banking Developments
3: Relationship Banking and Transaction Banking: Conceptual
Issues
4: Trends in Commercial Bank Liabilities
5: The Impact of Financial Crises on Commercial Bank Behaviour
6: Bank Mergers and the Impact on Asset Structures, 1860-1913
7: Contemporary Opinion on Bank Lending
8: Professionalization, Organization, and Control
9: The Nature of Commercial Banks' Industrial Loans
10: Loan Refusals
11: Business Clients' Financial Distress
12: Conclusion
Appendices
Michael Collins is Professor of Financial History at the University of Leeds, and author of a number of books on the history of banking in the UK, and journal articles on different aspects of monetary history. Mae Baker is Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance at the University of Leeds. She is author of a number of journal articles on different aspects of monetary history.
This is fundamental reading in British (and European) banking
history, and also a very informative and stimulating source for
economic and business historian alike.
*Francesca Carnevali, University of Birmingham, Business History*
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