Abstract
The half century before the First World War saw a massive export of British capital overseas, arguably to the detriment of the domestic economy. Between 1905 and 1914 some 5 to 7 per cent of the British National Income was sent abroad, almost double the rate of domestic capital formation. By 1914 the United Kingdom had about £4000 million invested overseas, over 40 per cent of this sum being in railways.
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Notes
George Paish, ‘Great Britain’s Capital Investment in Industrial Colonial and Foreign Countries’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, LXXIV (1911);
Sir George Paish, ‘The Export of Capital and the Cost of Living’, Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society (1913–14).
H. Feis, Europe: The World’s Banker 1870–1914 (Yale, 1930) p. 27 gives a figure of £40.6 million for British overseas investment in the prewar oil industry. W. R. Skinner, The Oil and Petroleum Manual (London, 1912 ).
For an overall assessment of British foreign investment within this period, see W. P. Kennedy, ‘Foreign Investment, Trade and Growth in the United Kingdom, 1870–1913’, Explorations in Economic History, II, 4 (1974).
Statistics for Scottish shale oil production are given in B. Redwood, A Treatise on Petroleum, vol. III, (London, 1922), p. 1127.
There is an account of the early growth of the Scottish shale oil industry by J. Butt, ‘Technical Change and the Growth of the British Shale Oil Industry 1680–1870’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd series, XVII (1964–5).
See M. Pearton, Oil and the Romanian State (Oxford, 1971) passim.
For an account of the Nobel oil enterprises in Russia, see Robert W. Tolf, The Russian Rockefellers: The Saga of the Nobel Family and the Russian Oil Industry (Stanford, 1976 ).
For the early years of the Rothschild’s investment in Russian oil, see B. Gille, ‘Capitaux Français et Pétroles Russes 1884–94’, Histoire des Enterprises, 12 (1963).
There is also useful data in R. Girault, Emprunts Russes et Investissements Francais en Russie 1887–1914 (Paris, 1973 ).
For a Soviet view, see A. Fursenko, ‘Parizhskie Rotshildy i Russkaia Neff’, Voprosy Istorii 8 (1962) and ch. 4 of his book Neftianye tresty i mirovaia politika (Moscow/Leningrad, 1965 ).
The most recent statistics for Russian oil production are in W. J. Kelly and T. Kano, ‘Crude Oil Production in the Russian Empire: 1818–1919’, 6, 2, Journal of European Economic History (1977).
The best accounts of the oil marketing battles in the late nineteenth century are on the American side, e.g. R. W. and M. E. Hidy, Pioneering in Big Business (New York, 1955 ).
P. V. Volobuev, ‘Iz istorii monopolizatsii neftianoi promyshlennosti dorevolüzionnoi Rossii’, Istoricheskie Zapiski (1955) 82–3.
See, for example, Charles Marvin, Baku: the Petrolia of Europe (London, 1884), and The Region of the Eternal Fire (London, 1884 ).
A. Beeby Thompson, Oil Pioneer (London, 1961) p. 70.
A. Beeby Thompson, The Oilfields of Russia, 2nd ed. (London, 1908) p. 131.
Letter from Mr G. P. Kamenskii, Agent of Ministry of Finance in London, to Mr V. E. Kovalevskii, Director of the Department of Trade and Manufacture, 28 January 1898, Monopolisticheskii Kapital (Moscow, 1961 ) pp. 214–16.
A. Beeby Thompson, Oil Pioneer (London, 1961) p. 295.
J. P. Mckay, ‘Foreign Enterprise in Russian and Soviet Industry: A Long-Term Perspective’, Business History Review, 48 (1974) 348.
A. Beeby Thompson, The Oilfields of Russia (London, 1904) pp. 33–6.
Ibid. Telegram from St Petersburg, 13 July 1898. The correspondence between Count Witte and the company on this matter has been published in M. Y. Gefter, A. M. Solov’ëva and L. E. Shepelev, ‘O proniknovenii angliiskogo kapitala v neftianuiu promyshlennost Rossii (1898–1902),’ Istoricheskii Arkhiv, 6 (1960), pp. 82–6.
W. Calder, ‘The Maikop Oilfield, South Russia’, Transactions of the Institute of Mining Engineers, XIVIII (1915) Part 2.
A. Beeby Thompson, Oil Pioneer (London, 1961) p. 306.
A. Beeby Thompson, The Oilfields of Russia (London, 1904). A. Fursenko, Neftianye tresty op. cit., p. 134.
P. V. 01’, op. cit., p. 43. For some reservations about 01’s statistics, which have been used as the main source for quantitative statements about oil investment in Russia, see M. Falkus, ‘Aspects of Foreign Investment in Tsarist Russia’, Journal of European Economic History, 8, 1 (1979) 30–5.
K. Beaton, Enterprise in Oil: A History of Shell in the United States (New York, 1957) pp. 72–75.
K. Middlemas, The Master Builders (London, 1963) p. 215.
D. Keir, The Bowring Story (London, 1962) pp. 230–1.
J. A. Spencer, Weetman Pearson, First Viscount Cowdray 1856–1927 (London, 1930 ) pp. 159–161.
P. Calvert, The Mexican Revolution 1910–1914 (Cambridge, 1968) p. 101.
P. Calvert, ‘The Murray Contract: An Episode in International Finance and Diplomacy’, Pacific Historical Review (1966).
A. Sampson, The Seven Sisters (London, 1976) p. 323.
F. C. Gerreston, History of the Royal Dutch, vol. IV (Leiden, 1958 ) 133.
G. D. Nash, United States Oil Policy 1890–1964 (Pittsburg, 1968 ) p. 8.
A. Fursenko, ‘The Beginnings of International Competition in Oil’, Seventh International Economic History Congress, 1978: Four ‘A’ Themes, p. 50.
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© 1981 Geoffrey Jones
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Jones, G. (1981). The British in Foreign Oilfields. In: The State and the Emergence of the British Oil Industry. Studies in Business History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05031-4_4
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