Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

CAROLYN DOWNS
sels as well as rapidly increasing insurance premiums. 91 Daniel
Eccleston did not expect to suffer a reduction in income as a result of
developing a new venture after moving from Liverpool to the smaller,
but thriving, port of Lancaster: ‘Have since then commenced
Insura. Broker, A business by which I’m informed 3 or 4 hundred
pounds a year has been obtained here; and I hope to make £100 to a
£150 or perhaps more, without running any risk or employing any
capital. The commission on the first two policies I set out with will
amount to £22.’ 92
The ability to move from one type of business to another untrammelled
by regulation and without the need for large amounts of capital
must have been a significant factor behind the rapid expansion of
trade and industry in the late eighteenth century. The growth of all
types of trade and industry, most of which expanded without the
benefit of mechanization, was fuelled in part by the speed with which
entrepreneurs reacted to new situations and seized new opportunities.
The late Georgian business world was as hard-headed, cutthroat,
and fast moving as e-commerce is today. Fernand Braudel
attributed the trading skills and successes of a range of distinct ethnic
and religious groups to their use of networks, often based on
familial or regional links. 93 It was certainly the case that Eccleston’s
experience of the insurance trade was an advantage, but even more
useful was his extensive network of contacts. Eccleston decided the
risk of underwriting insurance was too great in a time of war, but that
he could apply his contacts in the development of an effective and
profitable insurance brokerage. Eccleston was brokering policies for
contacts from Whitehaven, Liverpool, Holyhead, and London with
Lancaster underwriters, ensuring that he was in funds in July 1781,
despite the overall trade downturn. The work of Braudel illustrated
the centrality of networks to the successful development of trade and
described how the use of friends-in-common acted as an informal
guarantee of reliability for traders, enabling them rapidly to establish
businesses when they settled in new areas. This practice was very
much that adopted by Daniel Eccleston as he moved into new areas
of operation.
91 Eccleston noted that the wages for a sailor were between £3 and £3 10s. per
month. LSF, TEMP MSS 145/1, Eccleston to William Eccleston, 8 Sept. 1781.
92 Ibid. Eccleston to William Eccleston, Whitehaven, 14 July 1781.
93 Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce (New York, 1982), 167.
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