Red in tooth and claw

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (191) finds some extreme business methods practised by money-lenders during the 1880s. These appeared during detailed coverage of bankruptcy cases as well as editorial comment. It also provides an insight into how some in the resort managed their enterprises. 

Victorian Bournemouth (191): Bournemouth Guardian

Local defender

A new publication, the Guardian developed critical positions about Bournemouth’s civics, commerce, and community. The editor took aim at local commercial practices and ethics when it seemed necessary. He took an interest in the recent Bankruptcy Law, devoting a regular column to detailed reports of court cases. In an editorial, he criticised some local businesses for incompetence and gullibility, while attacking others in strong terms for unethical methods used for their enrichment. He discussed ‘Bournemouth cases’, which consisted of a ‘good deal of loose trading and loose speculation in Bournemouth which ends disastrously for those concerned in it’. The editor felt that a continuation of these practices would reduce Bournemouth’s ability to attract both visitors and traders. This proprietorial view in one part stemmed from the publication’s position as a local stakeholder, but in another the commercial reality that the paper’s circulation (and advertising revenue) might experience adverse pressure.

Business warfare

A review of other bankruptcy cases published by the Guardian illustrated the aggressive tactics practiced by some businesses. In the bankruptcy of Edwin Clarke, bicycle dealer, his main creditor, the Starley and Sutton bicycle company, Coventry, made their position clear. They would not compound, ‘but would make him a bankrupt, adding that any thing they could do to make it hard for him he might depend upon their doing’. A claim of sharp practice against the Wilts & Dorset Bank occurred, the accusation maintaining they refused to surrender unneeded documents. The architects Lawson & Donkin had to offer £50 reward to anybody having information about the slander of their incipient bankruptcy. He proposed that cases arising from this behaviour should go not into the civil courts, but criminal. It seems plausible that such behaviour did not flourish at Bournemouth alone, but the Guardian saw itself as the resort’s defender. 

Victorian Bournemouth (191): the editorial

Inadequate managers

At the heart of the Guardian‘s perspective lay the view that credit created a double-edged weapon. On the one hand, it allowed entrepreneurs to prime a new business when short on capital. On the other, it did not prevent some without sufficient caution or training from sliding into trouble without delay. One  case discussed a lady, not of humble background, but impoverished, from leveraging her perceived social position to obtain extensive credit amongst local traders. Her business, a lodging-house, failed within months. The editor portrayed this as the inevitable result of bad management and unrestrained lending. Another case described perhaps a local stereotype: the speculating bricklayer. Seduced by the apparent endless opportunities to win big money in the property market, the bricklayer, oiled by too much credit but weakened by inadequate record keeping reached bankruptcy at speed. The editor, therefore, suggested that business success depended on commercial capability.

Questionable ethics

The editor attacked those who extended credit as a way to harvest secured assets for prices below market levels. He criticised such operators as swindlers. They belonged not in civil courts, but their criminal counterpart. He spun the demise of the ‘speculating bricklayer’ as a process of continuous deception. The mortgagee encouraged the man, now operating as a novice contractor, to accumulate debt. He clawed back sufficient money, glossed as expenses and interest, to starve the enterprise of enough capital to deliver profit from an open-market sale. Despite proposing a partnership with the bricklayer, the mortgagee had a different objective.  In reality, he wanted a gullible slave to ready the development for sale before stealing it under cover of his bankruptcy. This behaviour reflected the property owner who had leased a house to the aspirant lodging-house keeper in order to profit from her furniture after bankruptcy. Bad business for some.

Victorian Bournemouth (191): real cases

The ‘speculating bricklayer’

In another edition, the Bournemouth Guardian, detailed the case of E. J. Cutler, a Springbourne bricklayer, who went bankrupt for £219. Research produces a candidate: 1856-1926, born in Woodlands, a Dorset rural settlement, come to Bournemouth by 1881. The signature on his marriage certificate suggests he had low literacy. The case exposes his utter incapability at either understanding borrowing or keeping books. His mortgagee enabled him to obtain three building plots, total cost £350, lent at 5%, a year’s interest taken up front. He then borrowed £600 to finance materials. Furthermore, he borrowed extra money to pay off the first mortgage. The mortgagee deducted about 25% of the second loan to cover ‘interest and expenses’, thereby leaving the builder short. Unable to source more money, the builder went bankrupt, leaving the three houses to the mortgagee. This case, described as a swindle, provides a plausible model for the Guardian‘s editorial.

Alexander McEwan Brown

This man (1840-1920), a cabinet-maker’s son, provided the mortgages which ensnared E. J. Cutler into bankruptcy. A venetian-blind maker, he came to Boscombe as an agent for local gentry, but developed his own business in partnership with a one-time schoolmaster. Several large land schemes attracted his attention, Boscombe Pier in particular. The press made frequent mention of his name, growing his reputation. He exemplified the middling dream of social mobility through commercial success. Such a man might wear broadcloth ‘every day’, and ‘perhaps hands round the collecting bag … as the deacon or churchwarden’. This preserves ‘the stamp of respectability’. Many local property developers and auctioneers followed this pattern with parallel careers in civic or community affairs: big dogs. Perhaps not all pursued business in this way, but the Guardian, adopting a similar line to Dickens or Trollope, wanted to expose those such as Alexander McEwan Brown who did.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (191) has explored the dynamics and styles of contemporary business as practised in the resort during the 1880s. It has shown how the combination of gullible borrowers and unscrupulous lenders brought the former to bankruptcy and the latter to profit. A plausible conclusion would see such practice as not restricted to Bournemouth.

References

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