Men, Women, and Money
Perspectives on Gender, Wealth, and Investment 1850-1930

Edited by David R. Green, Alastair Owens, Josephine Maltby, and Janette Rutterford



The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed significant developments in the structure, organization, and expansion of financial markets and opportunities for investment in Britain and its empire. But very little is known about how men and women engaged with these markets and with new opportunities for money-making. In what ways did the composition of personal fortunes alter in response to these developments? How did individuals make use of new financial opportunities to further their own priorities and ensure their families' well-being? What choices of securities did they make, and how did these reflect their attitudes to investment risk? What were the implications of a rapidly growing investor population for corporate governance and the regulation of markets? How significant is gender in understanding new patterns of wealth holding and investment?

This interdisciplinary book brings together a range of leading international scholars to answer these questions and to develop important new research agendas. Foremost among these is a concern for gender, with several of the chapters exploring the growing importance of women within investment markets. These findings open up dialogues between economic and financial historians with social, gender, and feminist historians, and add a significant new dimension to existing research on women's economic agency. The volume also breaks fresh ground by analysing aspects of wealth holding and finance in British colonial settings: Canada and Australia. Understanding the extent to which global financial processes shaped the economic lives of those on the 'periphery' as well as at the 'heart' of empire will offer new insights into the social and geographical diffusion of financial markets.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, David R. Green, Josephine Maltby, Alastair Owens and Janette Rutterford
2. Wealth, Investment and Global Finance: International Financial Centres, 1870-1930, Youssef Cassis
3. The Shareholder's "Dog" that did not Bark: The History of British Contested Takeover Bids in Comparative Perspective, Leslie Hannah
4. Gamblers, Fools, Victims or Wizards? The British Investor in the Public Mind, 1850- 1930, Ranald Michie
5. The Wealth Structure of Britain in 1809-39, 1860-61 and 1906, William D. Rubinstein
6. Assets of the Dead: Wealth and Investment in Late Nineteenth-Century England and Wales, David R. Green and Alastair Owens
7. Colonial Sisters and Their Wealth: The Wealth Holdings of Women in South Australia, 1875-1915, Martin Shanahan
8. Wealth and Gender in Ontario: 1870-1930, Livio Di Matteo
9. They Lived and Saved: Examining the Savings Motives of Shopkeepers in Late Nineteenth-Century Britain, 1860-1890, Mary Beth Combs
10. Shareholder Liability, Risk Aversion, and Investment Returns in Nineteenth-Century British Banking, Graeme G. Acheson and John D. Turner
11. The Evidence for 'Democratisation' of Share Ownership in Great Britain in the Early Twentieth Century, Josephine Maltby and Jannette Rutterford