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“THE WIDOW, THE CLERGYMAN AND THE RECKLESS”: 1 WOMEN INVESTORS IN ENGLAND, 1830—1914

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13545700500508288

1466-4372

Janette Rutterford, Josephine Maltby,

Historical Economic and Social Studies

Abstract Abstract Modern historians infrequently acknowledge that women were financial investors before the twentieth century. Yet a study of nineteenth-century England shows substantial groups of women investing for income, capital growth, or a share in the family business. This article will summarize the evidence for women as investors and consider why their participation has been until recently largely ignored by scholars. Second, it will analyze the forms taken by women's investment, exploring the extent to which the development of the stock market and legal changes in married women's property rights facilitated a growing female role in investment. Third, it will analyze the objectives and needs of the three main groups of women investors: speculators, income-seekers, and family investors. The findings have implications for understanding the economic position of women before the First World War and also for contemporary discussion of women's wealth and investment. Keywords: Financial markets and institutionshousehold behaviorfamily economics JEL Codes: N23, J16, D10 Acknowledgments Thanks to the staff at Barclays Bank archive, Wythenshawe, Manchester, Barings Archive, the Prudential plc Archives, the Rothschild Archive, and Sheffield City Archive for their advice and help. Thanks also to Carmen Diana Deere and Cheryl Doss, to our referees, and to Sarah Hudson, David Greene of Kings College London, Alistair Owens of Queen Mary College London, Anne Laurence of the Open University, and Steve Toms of the University of York for discussions and comments. Thanks also to the participants at the Feminist Economics Conference in Oxford, August 2004, and to those at the Women and Wealth Workshop at Yale University, November 2004. All errors are, of course, our own. Notes 1From Blackwood's Magazine, December 1876. 2 In Great Britain, common stock, preferred stock, and secured debt securities are known respectively as ordinary shares, preference shares, and debentures. The latter terms will be used in the remainder of this article. 3 In addition to the writers quoted above, see, e.g., B. C. Hunt (1936 Hunt, B. C. 1936. The Development of the Business Corporation in England, 1800–1867, New York: Russell & Russell. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Norman N. Feltes (1974 Feltes, Norman N. 1974. Community and the Limits of Liability in Two Mid-Victorian Novels. Victorian Studies, 17(4): 355–369. [Google Scholar]), Philip L. Cottrell (1980 Cottrell, Philip L. 1980. Industrial Finance, 1830–1914, London: Methuen. [Google Scholar]), J. R. Reed (1984 Reed, J. R. 1984. A Friend to Mammon: Speculation in Victorian Literature. Victorian Studies, 27(7): 179–202. [Google Scholar]), Boyd Hilton (1988 Hilton, Boyd. 1988. The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795–1865, Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]), and Patrick Ireland (1996 Ireland, Patrick. 1996. Capitalism without the Capitalist: The Joint Stock Company's Share. Journal of Legal History, 17(1): 41–73. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) for discussions of the cultural and financial impact of the joint-stock company in Great Britain. 4 See Amanda Vickery (1993 Vickery, Amanda. 1993. Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women's History. Historical Review, 36(2): 383–414. [Google Scholar], 1998 Vickery, Amanda. 1998. The Gentleman's Daughter, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]) for a survey of the relevant literature. 5 See Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair (2000 Gordon, Eleanor and Nair, Gwyneth. 2000. The Economic Role of Middle-class Women in Glasgow. Women's History Review, 9(4): 791–813. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for a different view from Stephen Walker's on the role of married women. 6 Equity is defined in English law as “the application of general principles of justice to correct or supplement the law” as distinct from common law – “law derived from custom and judicial precedent rather than statutes” (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1995). 7 She described her book as a “Guide to the Unprotected in Every-day Matters Relating to Property and Income.” Again, the implication seems to be that the creation of a settlement was normal practice among the thoughtful middle class. See also Joan Perkin (1989 Perkin, Joan. 1989. Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England, London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]: 5, 15–6) on the roles of trusts for aristocrats, and Robert J. Morris (1998 Morris, Robert J. 1998. “Reading the Wills: Cash Economy Capitalists and Urban Peasants in the 1830s”. In The Making of the British Middle Class?, Edited by: Kidd, Alan and Nicholls, David. 113–129. London: Alan Sutton. [Google Scholar]: 121), Margaret R. Hunt (1996 Hunt, Margaret R. 1996. The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 157–62), and Eleanor Gordon and Gwyneth Nair (2000 Gordon, Eleanor and Nair, Gwyneth. 2000. The Economic Role of Middle-class Women in Glasgow. Women's History Review, 9(4): 791–813. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 801–3) on their importance to the middle classes. 8 See, e.g., Susan Moller Okin (1983–4 Okin, Susan Moller. 1983–1984. Patriarchy and Married Women's Property in England: Questions on Some Current Views. Eighteenth-Century Studies, 17(2): 121–138. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 4) for a discussion of the extent to which, despite marriage settlements, women were liable to find that their husbands took command of their estates on marriage. 9 These were: government annuities; savings banks; public funds/stocks; shares in limited companies; industrial, provident, friendly, building, and loan societies; and life insurance policies. Savings from before marriage were not protected unless they had been invested in one of these approved assets. 10 See, e.g., Census of England and Wales 1871, Preliminary Report, pp. xxiv–xxv; David Staars (1909 Staars, David. 1909. The English Woman: Studies in Her Evolution, London: Smith, Elder. [Google Scholar]: 327–8); Martha Vicinus (1985 Vicinus, Martha. 1985. Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, London: Virago Press. [Google Scholar]: xvi); Judith Worsnop (1990 Worsnop, Judith. 1990. A Reevaluation of ‘the Problem of Surplus Women’ in Nineteenth-century England: The Case of the 1851 Census. Women's Studies International Forum, 13(1–2): 21–31. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 23). Vicinus also suggests that the improved demographic position of women played a part in creating this gap. 11 However, financial assets, as in the case of marriage settlements for wives, might still be held in trust for widows (see, e.g., Mrs. Boardman [The Rothschild Archive: 000/132]). 12 Philippa Levine (1989 Levine, Philippa. 1989. ‘So Few Prizes and so Many Blanks': Marriage and Feminism in Later Nineteenth-century England. Journal of British Studies, 28(2): 150–174. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 151) describes these women as “seen as doomed to an unhappily penniless … existence.” It may be that this disparaging view extended to attitudes toward women's investment behavior. 13 “Jointure: an estate settled on a wife during the period for which she survives her husband” (Concise Oxford Dictionary 1995). 14 Punch was a satirical and humorous British weekly journal that ran from 1841 to 2002. 15 See, e.g., Christopher Clay (1968 Clay, Christopher. 1968. Marriage, Inheritance and the Rise of Large Estates in England, 1660–1815. Economic History Review Second Series, 22: 503–518. [Google Scholar]), who discusses the role of inheritance in the context of the creation of large landed estates in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 16 She found that in the eighteenth century in England, 10 percent of wills were made by women, but in the large industrial towns of Sheffield and Birmingham, their share of total wills increased to 18.1 percent and 22.8 percent, respectively (Maxine Berg 1993 Beeton, Samuel Orchart. 1870. Guide to the Stock Exchange and Money Market, London: Ward, Lock & Tyler. [Google Scholar]: 237). 17 This was the case in 70 percent of his sample for the period. 18 See Mary Beth Combs (2006 Combs, Mary Beth. 2006. Cui Bono? The 1870 British Married Women's Property Act, Bargaining Power and the Distribution of Resources within Marriage. Feminist Economics, 12(1–2): 51–83. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) on the use of rental property to obtain a higher return than that available from other investments. 19 See also Hunt (1996 Hunt, Margaret R. 1996. The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 145–6) on the use of stocks and annuities to finance “the retreat from trade” by middle-class women in the eighteenth century. 20 There were, however, already women shareholders in unlimited companies – see Sarah Hudson (2001 Hudson, Sarah. 2001. “Attitudes to Investment Risk amongst West Midland Canal and Railway Company Investors, 1760–1850”. Doctoral dissertation, University of Warwick. [Google Scholar]) on their involvement with canal companies from 1760 onwards. 21 Loans secured on the assets of the company. 22 These ranked ahead of ordinary shares. 23 See, e.g., Hudson (2001 Hudson, Sarah. 2001. “Attitudes to Investment Risk amongst West Midland Canal and Railway Company Investors, 1760–1850”. Doctoral dissertation, University of Warwick. [Google Scholar]: 176 – 8), who suggests that they were therefore strongly influenced by male relatives in making their choice. 24 See also Hudson (2001 Hudson, Sarah. 2001. “Attitudes to Investment Risk amongst West Midland Canal and Railway Company Investors, 1760–1850”. Doctoral dissertation, University of Warwick. [Google Scholar]). In the period 1760 to 1850, she finds distinctive attitudes to risk-taking between women and some, but not all, groups of male investors rather than between women and men. Some men were risk-seekers, some were risk-averse; women seem to have been risk-seeking during the early stages of canal projects, but risk-averse when investing in operating companies. 25 Attributed to Thorsten Veblen (1899 Veblen, Thorsten. 1899/1970. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions London Unwin (repr. 1970) [Google Scholar]). 26 Prudential Assurance Company employed women from 1871, and on their leaving to get married, they were awarded one year's salary. Female employees were not entitled to a pension scheme until 1918. National Mutual Assurance Society introduced a pension scheme for female workers in 1923. The state retirement pension for men was introduced into Great Britain in 1906. 27 See the writers identified in the introduction to this article.