Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T08:16:39.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Wholly an Australian Industry”? Establishing British Multinational Manufacture at the Bryant & May Empire Works, 1909–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2021

Emma Robertson Open the ORCID record for Emma Robertson [Opens in a new window]  and
Charles Fahey Open the ORCID record for Charles Fahey [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Bryant & May company is well known for its operations in Britain. Historians have paid less attention to the actions of the company overseas. The opening of a new Australian subsidiary factory in 1909 marked an early venture in multinational manufacturing within the British Empire. This article uses business records and newspapers from both the British and Australian archives to examine the day-to-day operations of this multinational, with a particular focus on the human dimension of the interactions between London and Melbourne. The Bryant & May case study reveals the evolving, sometimes tense, relationship between the “home” and “subsidiary” branches in the context of British imperialism and Australian federation in the years preceding World War I. Business, personal, and imperial relationships intertwined. While business historians have developed theoretical frameworks to understand why companies embark on multinational operations, work remains to be done on the longer-term operations of companies in particular political, social, and cultural contexts. We examine the building of the Empire Works match factory in Melbourne, the nature of transnational management, labor relations, and key production challenges up to the Interstate Commission of 1914. We reveal how Melbourne managers, sometimes against the inclinations of the London directors, were prepared to drive a hard bargain with local politicians and workers. Bryant & May successfully, and sometimes controversially, gained competitive advantage as a “local” company with access to preferential tariffs. This placed the firm in an ideal position to prosper when international trade was disrupted during World War I.

Keywords

multinationalscorporate culturemanufacturingAustralia
Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 2023 , pp. 2 - 27
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Beaver, Patrick. The Match Makers. London: Henry Melland, 1985.Google Scholar
Brett, Judith. The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2017.Google Scholar
Butlin, N. G. Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1861–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Chilton, Lisa. Agents of Empire: British Female Migration to Canada and Australia, 1860s–1930. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Howard. The Global Cigarette: Origins and Evolution of British American Tobacco, 1880–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frances, Raelene. The Politics of Work: Gender and Labour in Victoria, 1880–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Ghemawat, Pankaj. The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Gothard, Jan. Blue China: Single Female Migration to Colonial Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Harper, Marjory, and Constantine, Stephen. Migration and Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulme, Mike. Weathered: Cultures of Climate. Los Angeles, California: Sage, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Larson, Ann. Growing up in Melbourne. Canberra: Australian National University, 1994.Google Scholar
Lopes, Teresa da Silva, Lubinski, Christina, and Tworek, Heidi, eds. The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, W. A Hundred Years of Match Making, Bryant and May, 1861–1961. London: Newman Neame, 1959.Google Scholar
Macalman, Janet. Struggle Town. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Osterhammel, J., and Petersson, N.. Globalization: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parr, Joy. The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men and Change in Two Industrial Towns, 1880–1950. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Raw, Louise. Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and Their Place in History. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009.Google Scholar
Richards, Eric. Destination Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Sawer, Geoffrey. Australian Federal Politics and Law, 1901–1929. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Wright, Christopher. The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Arnold, A. J. “Out of Light a Little Profit? Returns to Capital at Bryant and May, 1884–1927.” Business History, 53, no. 4 (2011): 617–640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caligiuri, Paula M., and Cascio, Wayne F.. “Can We Send Her There? Maximizing the Success of Western Women on Global Assignments.” Journal of World Business, 33, no. 4 (1998): 394–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, J. H. “Trade, Location of Economic Activity and the MNE: A Search for an Eclectic Approach.” In The International Allocation of Economic Activity, edited by Ohlin, B., Hesselborn, P. O., and Wijkman, P. M., 395–418. London: Macmillan, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, John H., and Archer, Howard. “The Eclectic Paradigm and the Growth of UK Multinational Enterprise 1870–1983.” Business and Economic History, second series, 16 (1987): 19–49.Google Scholar
Fahey, Charles, and Sammartino, André. “Work and Wages at a Melbourne Factory, the Guest Biscuit Works, 1870–1921.” Australian Economic History Review, 53, no. 1 (2013): 22–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Robert. “Employers Labour Strategies, Industrial Welfare, and the Response to New Unionism at Bryant and May, 1888–1930.” Business History, 31, no. 2 (1989): 48–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Robert. “International Business and the Development of British Electrical Manufacturing.” Business History Review, 91 (2017): 31–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Robert. “Multinational Management.” In The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, edited by Lopes, Teresa da Silva, Lubinski, Christina, and Tworek, Heidi, 530–545. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghemawat, Pankaj, and Jones, Geoffrey G.. “Globalization in Historical Perspective.” In The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications, edited by Ghemawat, P., 56–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Neva. “The Social Impacts of Multinational Corporations: An Outline of the Issues with a Focus on Workers.” In Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History, edited by Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. and Mazlish, Bruce, 135–165. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hearn, Jeff, Jyrkinen, Marjut, Piekkari, Rebecca, and Oinonen, Eeva. “‘Women Home and Away’: Transnational Managerial Work and Gender Relations.” Journal of Business Ethics, 83 (2008): 41–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. “Multinational Chocolate: Cadbury Overseas, 1918–39.” Business History, 26, no. 1 (1984): 59–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. “Business Enterprises and Global Worlds.” Enterprise and Society, 3, no. 4 (2002): 581–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. “The End of Nationality? Global Firms and ‘Borderless Worlds.’” Journal of Business History, 51 (2006): 149–165.Google Scholar
Lopes, Teresa da Silva, Guimarães, Carlos Gabriel, Saes, Alexandre, and Saraiva, Luiz Fernando. “The ‘Disguised’ Foreign Investor: Brands, Trademarks and the British Expatriate Entrepreneur in Brazil.” Business History, 60, no. 8 (2018): 1171–1195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubinski, Christina. “Liability of Foreignness in Historical Context: German Business in Preindependence India (1880–1940).” Enterprise & Society 15, no. 4 (2014): 722–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubinski, Christina. “Global Trade and Indian Politics: The German Dye Business in India Before 1947.” Business History Review, 89 (2015): 503–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minchin, Timothy J. “‘The Assembly Line and Cars Come First’: Labor Relations and the Demise of Nissan Car Manufacturing in Australia.” Labor History, 48, no. 3 (2007): 327–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Stephen. “Agency Contracts, Institutional Modes, and the Transition to Foreign Direct Investment by British Manufacturing Multinationals Before 1939.” Journal of Economic History, 43. no. 3 (1983): 675–686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Stephen J. “The Overseas Marketing Performance of British Industry, 1870–1914.” Economic History Review, 37, no. 4 (1984): 489–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parr, Joy. “The Skilled Emigrant and Her Kin: Gender, Culture and Labour Recruitment.” Canadian Historical Review, 68, no. 4 (1987): 529–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, Yves. “Sojourns: A New Category of Female Mobility.” Gender & History, 31, no. 3 (2019): 717–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, Emma. “‘Belles from Bristol and Bournville in New Surroundings’: Female Confectionery Workers as Transnational Agents, 1918–1928.” Women’s History Review, 25, no. 4 (2016): 563–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Andrew, and Magee, Gary. “A Soft Touch? British Industry, Empire Markets, and the Self-Governing Dominions, c.1870–1914.” Economic History Review, 56, no. 4 (2003): 689–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ville, Simon, and Merrett, David Tolmie. “Investing in a Wealthy Resource-Based Colonial Economy: International Business in Australia Before World War I.” Business History Review, 94 (2020): 321–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “Multinational Enterprise to 1930: Discontinuities and Continuities.” In Leviathans, edited by Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. and Mazlish, Bruce, 45–79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “The History of Multinationals: A 2015 View.” Business History Review, 89 (2015): 405–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Age (Melbourne, Australia)Google Scholar
Argus (Melbourne, Australia)Google Scholar
Bulletin (Sydney, Australia)Google Scholar
Herald (Melbourne, Australia)Google Scholar
Mercury (Hobart, Australia)Google Scholar
Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia)Google Scholar
Hackney Archives, London, UK (HA).Google Scholar
Heritage Victoria Database, https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/the-victorian-heritage-database.Google Scholar
Manuscript Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (SLV).Google Scholar
Victorian Public Record Office, Melbourne, Australia (VPRO).Google Scholar
Beaver, Patrick. The Match Makers. London: Henry Melland, 1985.Google Scholar
Brett, Judith. The Enigmatic Mr Deakin. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2017.Google Scholar
Butlin, N. G. Investment in Australian Economic Development, 1861–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Chilton, Lisa. Agents of Empire: British Female Migration to Canada and Australia, 1860s–1930. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Howard. The Global Cigarette: Origins and Evolution of British American Tobacco, 1880–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frances, Raelene. The Politics of Work: Gender and Labour in Victoria, 1880–1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Ghemawat, Pankaj. The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Gothard, Jan. Blue China: Single Female Migration to Colonial Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Harper, Marjory, and Constantine, Stephen. Migration and Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulme, Mike. Weathered: Cultures of Climate. Los Angeles, California: Sage, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Larson, Ann. Growing up in Melbourne. Canberra: Australian National University, 1994.Google Scholar
Lopes, Teresa da Silva, Lubinski, Christina, and Tworek, Heidi, eds. The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lucas, W. A Hundred Years of Match Making, Bryant and May, 1861–1961. London: Newman Neame, 1959.Google Scholar
Macalman, Janet. Struggle Town. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Osterhammel, J., and Petersson, N.. Globalization: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parr, Joy. The Gender of Breadwinners: Women, Men and Change in Two Industrial Towns, 1880–1950. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Raw, Louise. Striking a Light: The Bryant and May Matchwomen and Their Place in History. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009.Google Scholar
Richards, Eric. Destination Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Sawer, Geoffrey. Australian Federal Politics and Law, 1901–1929. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Wright, Christopher. The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Arnold, A. J. “Out of Light a Little Profit? Returns to Capital at Bryant and May, 1884–1927.” Business History, 53, no. 4 (2011): 617–640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caligiuri, Paula M., and Cascio, Wayne F.. “Can We Send Her There? Maximizing the Success of Western Women on Global Assignments.” Journal of World Business, 33, no. 4 (1998): 394–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, J. H. “Trade, Location of Economic Activity and the MNE: A Search for an Eclectic Approach.” In The International Allocation of Economic Activity, edited by Ohlin, B., Hesselborn, P. O., and Wijkman, P. M., 395–418. London: Macmillan, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunning, John H., and Archer, Howard. “The Eclectic Paradigm and the Growth of UK Multinational Enterprise 1870–1983.” Business and Economic History, second series, 16 (1987): 19–49.Google Scholar
Fahey, Charles, and Sammartino, André. “Work and Wages at a Melbourne Factory, the Guest Biscuit Works, 1870–1921.” Australian Economic History Review, 53, no. 1 (2013): 22–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Robert. “Employers Labour Strategies, Industrial Welfare, and the Response to New Unionism at Bryant and May, 1888–1930.” Business History, 31, no. 2 (1989): 48–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Robert. “International Business and the Development of British Electrical Manufacturing.” Business History Review, 91 (2017): 31–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Robert. “Multinational Management.” In The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, edited by Lopes, Teresa da Silva, Lubinski, Christina, and Tworek, Heidi, 530–545. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghemawat, Pankaj, and Jones, Geoffrey G.. “Globalization in Historical Perspective.” In The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications, edited by Ghemawat, P., 56–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Neva. “The Social Impacts of Multinational Corporations: An Outline of the Issues with a Focus on Workers.” In Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History, edited by Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. and Mazlish, Bruce, 135–165. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hearn, Jeff, Jyrkinen, Marjut, Piekkari, Rebecca, and Oinonen, Eeva. “‘Women Home and Away’: Transnational Managerial Work and Gender Relations.” Journal of Business Ethics, 83 (2008): 41–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. “Multinational Chocolate: Cadbury Overseas, 1918–39.” Business History, 26, no. 1 (1984): 59–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. “Business Enterprises and Global Worlds.” Enterprise and Society, 3, no. 4 (2002): 581–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. “The End of Nationality? Global Firms and ‘Borderless Worlds.’” Journal of Business History, 51 (2006): 149–165.Google Scholar
Lopes, Teresa da Silva, Guimarães, Carlos Gabriel, Saes, Alexandre, and Saraiva, Luiz Fernando. “The ‘Disguised’ Foreign Investor: Brands, Trademarks and the British Expatriate Entrepreneur in Brazil.” Business History, 60, no. 8 (2018): 1171–1195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubinski, Christina. “Liability of Foreignness in Historical Context: German Business in Preindependence India (1880–1940).” Enterprise & Society 15, no. 4 (2014): 722–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubinski, Christina. “Global Trade and Indian Politics: The German Dye Business in India Before 1947.” Business History Review, 89 (2015): 503–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minchin, Timothy J. “‘The Assembly Line and Cars Come First’: Labor Relations and the Demise of Nissan Car Manufacturing in Australia.” Labor History, 48, no. 3 (2007): 327–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Stephen. “Agency Contracts, Institutional Modes, and the Transition to Foreign Direct Investment by British Manufacturing Multinationals Before 1939.” Journal of Economic History, 43. no. 3 (1983): 675–686.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholas, Stephen J. “The Overseas Marketing Performance of British Industry, 1870–1914.” Economic History Review, 37, no. 4 (1984): 489–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parr, Joy. “The Skilled Emigrant and Her Kin: Gender, Culture and Labour Recruitment.” Canadian Historical Review, 68, no. 4 (1987): 529–551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, Yves. “Sojourns: A New Category of Female Mobility.” Gender & History, 31, no. 3 (2019): 717–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, Emma. “‘Belles from Bristol and Bournville in New Surroundings’: Female Confectionery Workers as Transnational Agents, 1918–1928.” Women’s History Review, 25, no. 4 (2016): 563–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Andrew, and Magee, Gary. “A Soft Touch? British Industry, Empire Markets, and the Self-Governing Dominions, c.1870–1914.” Economic History Review, 56, no. 4 (2003): 689–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ville, Simon, and Merrett, David Tolmie. “Investing in a Wealthy Resource-Based Colonial Economy: International Business in Australia Before World War I.” Business History Review, 94 (2020): 321–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “Multinational Enterprise to 1930: Discontinuities and Continuities.” In Leviathans, edited by Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. and Mazlish, Bruce, 45–79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkins, Mira. “The History of Multinationals: A 2015 View.” Business History Review, 89 (2015): 405–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Age (Melbourne, Australia)Google Scholar
Argus (Melbourne, Australia)Google Scholar
Bulletin (Sydney, Australia)Google Scholar
Herald (Melbourne, Australia)Google Scholar
Mercury (Hobart, Australia)Google Scholar
Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia)Google Scholar
Hackney Archives, London, UK (HA).Google Scholar
Heritage Victoria Database, https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/the-victorian-heritage-database.Google Scholar
Manuscript Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (SLV).Google Scholar
Victorian Public Record Office, Melbourne, Australia (VPRO).Google Scholar