This book explores the nineteenth century roots of globalisation through the activities of the enterprise network created by the Scottish merchant, William Mackinnon. It follows the rise of the family-led business group from its modest origins in Scotland to its transformation into the world's largest maritime and mercantile conglomerate, tracing the history of the various shipping firms within the group - including the British India, Netherlands India and Australasian United companies - and identifies the key factors behind its domination of coastal steamshipping around the Indian Ocean and into the western Pacific. It provides an analysis of the anatomy and dynamics of the enterprise network over time. The book also examines Mackinnon's relationship with the imperial statesman, Sir Henry Bartle Frere, which drew the network into the operations of British "informal imperialism" in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and East-Central Africa regions, and eventually to its sponsorship of the ill-fated Imperial British East Africa Company. It breaks new ground in identifying the interplay of personal and business considerations behind Mackinnon's participation in the "Scramble for Africa" in its combination of maritime history with business history and imperial history to contribute to the current debate over "gentlemanly capitalism" and British overseas expansion.
Author(s): J. Forbes Munro
Publisher: Boydell Press
Year: 2003
Language: English
Pages: 525
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1 Enterprising Scots
1 East India merchants: Clyde to Calcutta, 1823–61
2 The British India Steam Navigation Company, 1856–70
3 Extending the system: Australia, Indonesia and Arabian waters, 1862–70
4 Business networking, 1860–70
Part 2 Suez and after
5 The Suez Canal, India and the Netherlands Indies, 1869–82
6 The Persian Gulf, the Zanzibar mail contracts, and the London-Gulf line, 1869–82
7 Eastern Africa, 1872–82
8 ‘Aristocratic capitalism’, railways and the Central African project, 1876–82
9 Family, group and network, 1870–82
10 The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank, 1878–82
Part 3 Shipping power and imperial rivalries
11 The Australian opening, 1880–93
12 India: competition, collaboration and consolidation, 1882–93
13 Indonesia: nationalism in Dutch colonial policy, 1882–90
14 Imperial politics: Egypt and the scramble for Africa, 1882–6
15 Interludes: a Scottish election, an African expedition and a Persian railway, 1885–7
16 A false dawn: East Africa and the western Indian Ocean, 1887–90
17 The fall of the Imperial British East Africa Company, 1890–3
Conclusion
18 Maritime enterprise and empire
Appendix: family trees
Sources
Index
