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The finance of municipal capital expenditure in England and Wales, 1870–19141

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

John F. Wilson
John F. Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Information
Financial History Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , April 1997 , pp. 31 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © European Association for Banking and Financial History 1997

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References

2 Feinstein, C. H., National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 172.Google Scholar

3 See especially Bellamy, C., Administering Central-Local Relations, 1871–1919: The Local Government Board in its Fiscal and Cultural Context (Manchester, 1988)Google Scholar; Foster, C. D., Jackman, R. A. and Perlman, M., Local Government Finance in a Unitary State (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Page, H., Local Authority Borrowing. Past, Present and Future (London, 1985)Google Scholar; and Redlich, J. and Hirst, F. W., History of Local Government (London, 1903).Google Scholar

4 Lowell, A. L., The Government of England (London, 1908), vol. II, p. 191.Google Scholar

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8 See Falkus, M. E., ‘The development of municipal trading in the nineteenth century’, Business History, 19 (1977).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 For an analysis of municipal recurrent finances, see R. Millward and S. Sheard, Government expenditure on social overheads and the infrastructure in England and Wales, 1870–1914, Working Papers in Economic & Social History, University of Manchester, no. 23 (1993).

10 Offer, A., Property and Politics 1870–1914. Land Ownership, Law, Ideology and Urban Development in England (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 160, 221.Google Scholar

11 For discussions of the rating system, see Redlich, and Hirst, , History of Local Government, pp. 373–5Google Scholar and Waller, P. J., Town, City and Nation (Oxford, 1983), pp. 256–62.Google Scholar

12 See Offer, , Property and Politics, pp. 210–12.Google Scholar

13 I am indebted to Dr T. Balderston (University of Manchester) for advice on this matter.

14 See Page, Local Authority Borrowing, p. 90.Google Scholar

15 Parliamentary Papers [hereafter PP]: return(s) of the Amount of Debt Chargeable upon each County and Borough in England and Wales – 1873, LVI, 1; and 1874, LVI, 1.

16 Page, , Local Authority Borrowing, p. 131.Google Scholar

17 PP: 1870–71, XXVIII, Local Government Board Report, p. xliii. £7.36 million sanctioned under the 1858 Act included £154,859 authorised as part of the 1867 Sewage Utilisation Act.Google Scholar

18 PP: Return of the Amount of Debt, p. 1.Google Scholar

19 See Fraser, D., The Evolution of the Welfare State (London, 1984), pp. 72–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Bellamy, , Administering Central-Local Relations, p. 81.Google Scholar

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23 Wohl, , Endangered Lives, p. 174.Google Scholar

24 Bank rate rarely exceeded 2 or 3% in the mid-1870s. Mitchell, B. R., British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1988), p. 680.Google Scholar

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33 ibid., pp. 140–2, 241–52.

34 Thomas, W. A., Provincial Stock Exchanges (London, 1973), pp. 185–6.Google Scholar

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39 The ‘Macmillan Gap’ was the perceived gulf which separated City of London financial institutions from small and medium-sized businesses. See Thomas, W. A., The Finance of Industry, 1918–1976 (London, 1978), pp. 114–21.Google Scholar

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45 This point has also been made in Foster, et al. , Local Government Finance, pp. 88–9.Google Scholar

46 The impact on electricity supply was particularly noticeable because, between 1896 and 1905, the number of municipal power stations increased from 33 to 238, while the number of units sold rose from 9.6m. to 310.4m.: Garcke, E., Manual of Electrical Undertakings, XVII (London, 1913–1914), p. 6.Google Scholar See also Offer, , Property and Politics, pp. 231–41.Google Scholar

47 Cairncross, A. K., Home and Foreign Investment, 1870–1913. Studies in Capital Accumulation (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 144–5.Google Scholar

48 See Mitchell, , Historical Statistics, pp. 680–1Google Scholar, for bank rate trends in this period.

49 I am indebted to Professor Robert Millward for these categories.

50 The large sums raised for the Metropolitan Water Board and for the Port of London Authority were also mostly transfer payments for assets which already existed as parts of private companies.

51 PP: 1881, XLVI, Tenth Report of the Local Government Board, p. lii.Google Scholar

52 Millward, and Sheard, , Government expenditure on social overheads, p. 32.Google Scholar

53 The 1902 Education Act abolished the School Boards and made education the responsibility of local authorities. See Fraser, , Evolution of the Welfare State, pp. 78–89.Google Scholar

54 Millward, and Sheard, , Government expenditure on social overheads, p. 32.Google Scholar

55 Cairncross, , Home and Foreign Investment, p. 145, falls into this trap.Google Scholar

56 The only source to note this is Thomas, , Provincial Stock Exchanges, pp. 185–6.Google Scholar

57 This is the subject of an ongoing research project.

58 Cairncross, , Home and Foreign Investment, p. 145.Google Scholar

59 Edelstein, M., The rate of return on UK home and foreign investment, 1870–1913, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (University of Pennsylvania), pp. 235–7Google Scholar, quoted in Kennedy, W. P., Industrial Structure, Capital Markets and the Origins of British Economic Decline (Cambridge, 1987), p. 127.Google Scholar

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65 This debate is reviewed further in Wilson, J. F., British Business History, 1720–1994 (Manchester, 1995), pp. 119–31.Google Scholar

66 Offer, , Property and Politics, p. 234Google Scholar; see also pp. 145–7.Google Scholar

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70 Millward, and Sheard, , Government expenditure on social overheads, p. 32.Google Scholar

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72 See ibid., p. 89; and Offer, , Property and Politics, p. 227.Google Scholar