Sheila Marriner

The Port of Liverpool and the Crisis of 1793

The commercial -and financial crisis of 1793 is a most interesting, though small, part of the cyclical pattern which steadily recurs, first in the British economy and then with widening regularity throughout the world, from the end of the war of American Independence to the present century.2 The year I793 was undoubtedly a turning point in this cyclical pattern; it was a trough year, and in the evidence supplied by A. F. Burns and W. C. Mitchell it is marked as such between the peak years of I792 and 1796. It is in the scale of the decline, in the isolation of particular factors and in the nature of the recovery that interest attaches to this crisis. Mercantile communities in various parts of the country suffered disproportionately; some recovered more quickly than others. In no great trading centre were the losses more severe than in Liverpool ; in no place were such energetic measures adopted to achieve a rapid recovery. An analysis of crisis conditions in Liverpool, the major exporting port for the Midlands and the North Country, can, it is hoped, provide much useful information for the economist and for the economic historian, and throw into relief some of the local factors tending to aggravate fluctuations in the history of the trade cycle. Contemporary opinions on the causes of the crisis adduced a varying range of phenomena. The Report of the House

English shipowning during the industrial revolution : Michael Henley and Son, London shipowners, 1770-1830

This study reveals how early English shipowners developed the size and structure of their business, the types of vessels they used, the cargoes they carried, the freights they paid and the profits they earned. Broader conclusions also emerge about the development of the shipping industry as a whole in this critical period of the Industrial Revolution, such as the structure of firms, the manner in which entrepreneurs responded to the wartime economy, and the reasons why most shipping enterprises were short-lived.