The British Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Association: Struggle for Survival 1870‒1930

Moss Michael ()
Additional contact information
Moss Michael: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte – Redaktion, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Historisches Institut, Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensgeschichte, D-44780BochumGermany

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, 2021, vol. 62, issue 1, 71-98

Abstract: Most firms in the British fertiliser industry of the 19th century were small and combined other activities, such as seed merchants, millers, manufacturers of sulphuric acid and in one case explosives. In the heyday of high farming there was almost no co-operation and no attempt to achieve economy of scale through merger and amalgamation. In 1875 just before the onset of the depression the Chemical Manure Manufacturers’ Association was formed to fix prices and address the challenges posed by proposed Government regulation of what was after all a noxious industry. This story mirrors much of British industry, where implicit (price-fixing) cartels failed and individual firms rejected collaboration in favour of what seems an irrational commitment to a free market ideology that was transparently misplaced.

Keywords: Superphosphates; Fertilizer Trade; United Kingdom; Edward Packard; Superphosphate; Düngemittelhandel; Vereinigtes Königreich (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0004 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jbwige:v:62:y:2021:i:1:p:71-98:n:3

DOI: 10.1515/jbwg-2021-0004

Access Statistics for this article

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook is currently edited by Dieter Ziegler

More articles in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().