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Business
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"I presume to observe,
Sir Walter,
that, in the way of business, gentlemen of the navy are well to deal with." |
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| Cut-throat competitor | London Shops | ||
| Fashionable Driving | Mr. Phipson's Pin Factory | ||
| Lloyd's Coffee-House | The Royal Exchange | ||
| London Shopkeepers | The Stock Exchange | ||
Cut-throat competitor wins Big.
When Sir Richard Arkwright went first to Manchester, he hired himself to a petty barber; but being remarkably frugal, he saved money out of a very scanty income. With these savings he took a cellar, and commenced business; at the cellar head he displayed this inscription: "Subterranean shaving with keen razors, for one penny." The novelty had a very successful effect, for he soon had plenty of customers; so much so, that several brother tonsors, who before demanded two-pence a piece for shaving, were obliged to reduce their terms. They also styled themselves subterranean shavers, although they all lived and worked above ground. Upon this, Arkwright determined on a still farther reduction, and shaved for a half-penny. A neighbouring cobbler one day descended the original subterranean tonsor's steps, in order to be shaved. The fellow had a remarkable strong, rough beard. Arkwright beginning to lather him, said, he hoped he would give another half-penny for his beard was so strong it might spoil his razor. The cobbler declared he would not. Arkwright then shaved him for the halfpenny, and immediately gave him two pairs of shoes to mend. This was the basis of Arkwright's extraordinary fortune; for the cobbler, struck with this unexpected favour, introduced him to the inspection of a cotton machine invented by his particular friend. The plan of this Arkwright got possession of, and it gradually led him to the dignity of knighthood, and the accumulation of half a million of money.
Mr. Phipson's Pin Manufactory
(from Joshua White's Letters on England, written in 1810)
I made a second and more satisfactory visit to Mr. Phipson's pin manufactory, and witnessed every process, from drawing the wire to the last one of sticking the pins in the papers. It will scarcely be believed that each pin has to pass through fourteen distinct operations before it is finished. Every one is executed with amazing facility and expedition, as may be conceived from the trifling value of the article. A man will sharpen four hundred pins in a minute. The heads, which are previously formed of spiral wire, are fixed on by children, by an apparatus as simple as it is ingenious, and it is done with extreme dexterity. The sharpened pins are placed on the left, and the pin heads on the right of the person, who sits opposite to a very small anvil, having a hole in the centre of it, corresponding in size and with the head of the pin. This is done by two strokes of a hammer, raised by the foot; whilst this operation is going on, the person is engaged in putting a head on another pin to undergo the same process; and this is done solely with the fingers, without the eyes being directed to the object.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE
Marts for the assembling of merchants had long been known in
the commercial towns of the Hanseatic League, under the name of Bourses, before
one was erected in England. This was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and
principally owed its origin to Sir Thomas Gresham, then an eminent merchant.
The city having purchased houses to the amount of 4000 l. on the site
of the projected building, Sir Thomas Gresham laid the first stone on June
7, 1566, and erected it at the expense of about 6000 l.
When finished, Queen Elizabeth proceeded from Somerset House, January 23,
1570, accompanied by a train of nobility and attendants, to Sir Thomas Gresham's
magnificent mansion, where a sumptuous dinner was provided for the queen and
her court. After they had dined, the whole party went to the new building;
where every shop and every tenant were exhibited to the utmost advantage.
After gratifying her curiosity, the queen commanded a herald to proclaim it
the "Royal Exchange", by sound of trumpet.
The original Royal Exchange perished in the conflagration of the city in 1666; and the first stone of the present building was laid by Charles II, when a magnificent entertainment was prepared for him on the spot. The grasshopper which surmounts the building, was adopted in honour of Sir Thomas Gresham He was the son of a poor woman, who left him exposed in a field, but the chirping of grasshoppers leading a boy to the spot, his life was preserved, and hence he adopted the insect for his crest.
LONDON SHOPS
(from Robert Southey’s “Letters from England,” written in 1802)
Every shop has an inscription above it expressing the name of its owner, and that of his predecessor, if the business has been so long established as to derive a certain degree of respectability from time. Cheap Warehouse is sometimes added; and if the tradesman has the honour to serve any of the royal family, this is also mentioned, and the royal arms in a style of expensive carving are affixed over the door. These inscriptions in large gilt letters, shaped with the greatest nicety, form a peculiar feature in the streets of London. In former times all the shops had large signs suspended before them, such as are still used at inns in the country; these have long since disappeared; but in a few instances, where the shop is of such long standing that it is still known by the name of its old insignia, a small picture still preserves the sign, placed instead of one of the window panes.
If I were to pass the remainder of my life in London, I think the shops would always continue to amuse me. Something extraordinary or beautiful is for ever to be seen in them. I saw, the other day, a sturgeon, above two yards in length, hanging at a fishmonger’s. In one window you see the most exquisite lamps of alabaster, to shed a pearly light in the bed-chamber; or formed of cut glass to glitter like diamonds in the drawing-room; in another, a concave mirror reflects the whole picture of the street, with all its moving swarms, or you start from your own face magnified to the proportions of a giant’s. Here a painted piece of beef swings in a roaster to exhibit the machine which turns it; here you have a collection of worms from the human intestines, curiously bottled, and every bottle with a label stating to whom the worm belonged, and testifying that the party was relieved from it by virtue of the medicine which is sold within. At one door stands a little Scotchman taking snuff,--in one window a little gentleman with his coat puckered up in folds, and the folds filled with water to show that it is proof against wet. Here you have cages full of birds of every kind, and on the upper story live peacocks are spreading their fans; another window displays the rarest birds and beasts stuffed, and in glass cases; in another you have every sort of artificial fly for the angler, and another is full of busts painted to the life, with glass eyes, and dressed in full fashion to exhibit the wigs which are made within, to the very newest and approved taste. And thus is there a perpetual exhibition of whatever is curious in nature or art, exquisite in workmanship, or singular in costume; and the display is perpetually varying as the ingenuity of trade, and the absurdity of fashion are ever producing something new.
THE STOCK EXCHANGE
In London, which is the emporium of the wealth of the whole world, and which gives action to the industry and intelligence of all civilized nations, no ordinary commerce is carried on at the Stock Exchange; and, notwithstanding the apparent mystery in which its transactions are involved, it is nothing more nor less than a market-place. The articles there bought and sold, consist of national pledges or pawns, bearing interest by way of annuity; and stock-brokers, or stock-jobbers, are the merchants who traffic in these articles, either on their won account, or by commission for other persons.
The national debt, the funds, or the stocks, for by all these names the article of traffic in the Stock Exchange is called, opened a new source of profit to the merchant or tradesman, who when he had accumulated a sum of money, could lend the surplus of his capital to the state, and receive regular interest guaranteed to him by the public faith of his fellow citizens.
In this manner did the establishment of national funds open a new market to capitalists, create a new field for speculation, and engender a new profession in the character of broker, or agent, between the buyers and sellers of this species of property. As the amount of those funds increased, the number of proprietors of course multiplied, and the necessity of transfers became more frequent. These circumstances naturally drew together the parties interested, and a place of rendezvous for stock-holders and their agents was, without any design, established at Jonathan's, now Garraway's, Coffee House, in Change Alley, Cornhill. From this circumstance, the word "alley" is to this day familiarly used as a cant phrase for the Stock Exchange. By degrees, this Coffee House grew into an acknowledged market for settling the price of stocks. In process of time, however, this species of traffic attained such magnitude, that the brokers erected, by subscription, a building for the exclusive purpose of their business, and denominated it, the "Stock Exchange."
LLOYD'S COFFEE-HOUSE
One of the most important local objects in the commerce of this enterprising country, and indeed of the globe itself, is Lloyd's Coffee-House, a name which is derived from the first person who kept it, and who little imagined that it would progressively acquire a celebrity as great in the annals of the commercial world, as that of any sovereign in the history of courts.
This establishment became many years since the resort of a very considerable body of English merchants, and other men of business, more particularly brokers and underwriters, who assembled to divide among themselves, and to be responsible to each other, for the losses produced by ships either damaged, captured, burnt, or subjected to any other injury, in the course of their different voyages.
The Coffee-House is also a central point of political information, because the ministers, knowing its importance, select and appropriate this place as the medium of conveying the first intelligence of every national concern; and the tidings, whether good or bad, flow as from an original source to the public in general. Indeed it has now enjoyed this distinction so long, that whenever a rumour is in circulation, to say "We have it from Lloyd's," gives it a currency and sanction to which it would not otherwise be entitled. In short, Lloyd's Coffeehouse is now an empire within itself; an empire, which, in point of commercial sway, variety of powers, and almost incalculable resources, gives laws to the trading part of the universe; and if we combine its authority with the grand mart of business below it in the Royal Exchange, there is not a place in the world can vie with this assemblage of British merchants.
LLOYD’S
(from Ackermann’s “Microcosm of London,” 1810)
THIS place has acquired a celebrity in the commercial world, which entitles it to notice in a work of this nature. Its name is supposed to have been derived originally from a coffee-house in Lombard-street, kept by a person named Lloyd, much frequented, about the middle of the last century, by merchants, bankers, &c. it is in the nature of success to create rivalship: accordingly, about fifty years since, a house was opened in Pope’s Head-alley (in opposition to the former house), which assumed the name of New Lloyd’s: this occasioned a great falling off in the business of the old house, which eventually declined altogether.
The trade of the country increasing very fast about the year 1771 or 2, New Lloyd’s was found to be insufficient for the accommodation of the merchants, ship-owners, &c. who made it a place of meeting for business; in consequence of which about one hundred merchants entered into a subscription, for the purpose of erecting another house upon a more enlarged and liberal scale. At this period, the buildings now called Lloyd’s being offered to them, they were taken, as their contiguity to the Royal Exchange, and the extensive accommodations which they afforded, made the situation extremely desirable: the subscribers were therefore only called upon for 15l. upon their subscriptions; which sum is at present paid by every gentleman who is admitted. This payment is placed in a fund to answer any demands for the interest of the house, and by means of it the rooms are supported. This society has for some years shewn the example of many liberal subscriptions for the relief of sufferers in our naval victories; and towards the Patriotic Fund the subscribers voted 20,000l. besides their individual subscriptions, many of which amounted to 1000l. and we believe there were none under 100l.
The subscription-room is 74 feet 8 inches long, 19 feet 5 inches wide, and 18 feet 8 inches high: it was opened in the year 1786. The adjoining room is 85 feet 2 inches long, 21 feet wide, and 19 feet 1 inch high, and was opened in the year 1791. A third room, adjoining, is 61 feet 9 inches long, 20 feet wide, and 18 feet 7 inches high, and was opened in 1802. These rooms are for the use of merchants, underwriters, brokers, &c.
There are besides two coffee-rooms, one of which is 55 feet 2 inches long, 15 feet 6 inches wide, and 17 feet 6 inches high; the other is 48 feet 8 inches long, 20 feet wide, and 20 feet 3 inches high: these were opened in the year 1774, at which time the latter was appropriated for the use of subscribers only. In the former, ships are now sold by auction, and notices of vessels bound to the Leeward Islands are put up: they are both principally frequented by persons more immediately connected with concerns of this nature. There are two other rooms for committees on the affairs of the house, which are fitted up with maps, &c.
FASHIONABLE DRIVING
(from a business card noted in a supplement The Gentleman's Magazine for 1811)
AMOS PYEBALD begs leave to present his respects to the Nobility and Gentry, and to inform them that he intends opening an Academy for the instruction of Amateurs in the above branch of Polite Science. The Unicorn & Four-in-hand will be taught by Masters of approved science; and the Tandem, Random, Harum-scarum, Break-neck, and Dead Certainty, by A. P. himself.
N. B. There will always be a coach with four sham horses in the Academy; so that elderly Gentlemen, and those who have families, or are constitutionally timid, may learn to mount and dismount the box, keep a firm seat, and handle the whip and reins before they turn out.
* * A.P.s friends the Earl of ___ and Lord____(from whom cards of terms and address may be had) have kindly undertaken to vouch for his professional ability.
LONDON SHOPKEEPERS
(from Robert Southey's "Letters From England," written in 1802)
I have employed this morning in wandering about this huge metropolis with an English gentleman, well acquainted with the manners and customs of foreign countries, and therefore well qualified to point out to me what is peculiar in his own. Of the imposing splendour of the shops I have already spoken; but I have not told you that the finest gentlemen to be seen in the streets of London are the men who serve at the linen-drapers' and mercers.' Early in the morning they are drest cap-a-pied, the hair feathered and frosted with a delicacy which no hat is to derange through the day; and this is a leisure time with them, they are to be seen after breakfast at their respective shop-doors, paring their nails, and adjusting their cravats. That so many young men should be employed in London to recommend laces and muslins to the ladies, to assist them in the choice of a gown, to weigh out thread and to measure ribbons, excited my surprise; but my friend soon explained the reason. He told me, that in countries where women are the shopkeepers, shops are only kept for the convenience of the people, and not for their amusement. Persons there go into a shop because they want the article which is sold there, and in that case a woman answers all the purposes which are required; the shops themselves are mere repositories of goods, and the time of the year of little importance to the receipts. But it is otherwise in London; luxury here fills every head with caprice, from the servant-maid to the peeress, and shops are become exhibitions of fashion. In the spring, when all persons of distinction are in Town, the usual morning employment of the ladies is to go a-shopping, as it is called; that is, to see curious exhibitions. This they do without actually wanting to purchase any thing, and they spend their money or not, according to the temptations which are held out to gratify and amuse. Now female shopkeepers, it is said, have not enough patience to indulge this idle and fastidious curiosity; whereas young men are more assiduous, more engaging, and not at all querulous about their loss of time.
It must be confessed that these exhibitions are very entertaining, nor is there any thing wanting to set them off to the greatest advantage. Many of the windows are even glazed with large panes of plate glass, at a great expense; but this, I am told, is a refinement of a very late date; indeed glass windows were seldom used in shops before the present reign, and they who deal in woolen cloth have not yet universally come into fashion.
