BUSINESS HISTORY AND ITS SOURCES
| Pages | 100-106 |
| Published date | 01 February 1950 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026156 |
| Date | 01 February 1950 |
| Author | MARJORIE PLANT |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
BUSINESS HISTORY AND ITS SOURCES
by MARJORIE PLANT, D.SC. (Econ.), F.L.A.
Deputy
Librarian,
The British Library
of
Political and Economic Science
THE
historian sometimes has a blissful dream that he has come across a mass
of records previously unknown to exist but capable, in his hands, of forming
the basis of an epoch-making study. In 1921 it came true with the thrilling
discovery of the documents on which Professor George Unwin was to base
his Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights,1 which might be called the first
business history. Oldknow's cotton mill at Mellor was then a ruin, having
been destroyed by fire in 1892; all that remained was a detached portion
which, though dilapidated,
was
used for stabling and for other odd purposes.
One day a Boy Scout aroused curiosity by offering to passers-by a number of
weavers' pay-tickets dating from the eighteenth century. His explanation,
on being questioned, was that he had found them in this small outhouse. The
find was quickly reported to Unwin, and he joined eagerly in the search
among the dust and debris of the upper floor, to be rewarded by the dis-
covery of heaps of letters, account-books, wages-sheets, and other manu-
scripts. Then began an engrossing task of cleaning and sorting. By incredibly
good fortune the documents were found to include the records of Oldknow's
previous business as a muslin manufacturer at Stockport, of
his
bleach and
print works at Heaton Mersey, and of the beginnings of his enterprise at
Anderton, as well as those of the Mellor mill
itself.
The list of the records found at Mellor is a perfect example of the sources
required for a business history of the final period of the domestic system and
the early factory age. It includes accounts of creditors and servants, accounts
of petty
expenses,
cash-books, day-books of
sales,
lists
of weavers and spinners,
a list of yarn deliveries, weavers', winders', and spinners' ledgers, carriers'
accounts, warping-books, costing-books, order-books, stocktaking records,
records of stock in weavers' hands, bundles of weavers' pay-tickets, wages
and time-books, statistical statements of output, canal permits and accounts,
and many other manuscripts, including thousands of letters. To supplement
all this material Professor Unwin used the title-deeds of
the
various estates,
together with the mortgages executed by Oldknow and the deeds relating
to the partnership between Oldknow and the second Richard Arkwright.
The history of a modern business organization calls for a greater mass of
material—census returns, tax returns, and numerous other government
returns unthought of in Oldknow's day; proceedings of works committees
and boards of arbitration; canteen accounts; reports of welfare officers, of
music and dramatic societies, and the rest. Too often the resulting publica-
tion is a dreary affair comprising little more than a register of staff and their
activities, with an inventory of extensions to premises and a few columns of
1 Manchester University Press, 1924.
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