Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family, and Business in the English-Speaking World, 1580-1740 (review)

Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family, and Business in the English-Speaking World. 1580-1740. By Richard Grassby (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2000) 505 pp. $64.95

Historians investigating the early modern business world have long been aware that the family connections and interests of a firm are most relevant for understanding its opportunities and decisions. A number of investigators have looked into these phenomena. In his latest book, Grassby undertakes a particularly ambitious survey and analysis based on an electronic "database" containing information about several thousand business families active in the "English speaking world" between 1580 and 1740. He includes a limited amount of material on firms active in Scotland and the American colonies, but most of his data relate to England, particularly London. For families there, his most valuable source input would appear to be the wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. But why did he choose to neglect the north of England, as well as Perceval Boyd's massive register of inhabitants of London, now preserved in the library of the Society of Genealogists?

The most impressive results of Grassby's vast input are shown in his tables, which will inevitably find much use by all subsequent historians and sociologists interested in business families, particularly in the south of England. He has also accumulated a great amount of additional material that could not be reduced to tabular form. This information is presented in more conventional narrative, frequently in the form of anecdotes. Although Grassby rigorously reports the sources on which his tables are based, he tends to be more casual in presenting the sources for the "anecdotes." In some cases, finding his initial or primary footnote for a given item can prove difficult, and his details do not always agree with those in other standard reference works, such as J. R. Woodhead's The Rulers of London, 1660-1689 (London, 1966). The publisher has made future use even more difficult by not giving Grassby the extra pages needed for a full bibliography of the sources used in the nontabular text.

Grassby's curiosity is quite wide-ranging, and many of the topics covered are handled in a thought-provoking and disciplined manner, particularly the related problems of marriage contracts, dowries, wills, and provision for younger sons, widows, and orphans. Although Grassby's focus may be congenial to some historians and sociologists, economic historians might like fuller development in other areas. In the last half century covered by this book, Grassby's firms in overseas trade tend to grow fewer in number and larger in size. How did this affect the family character of such firms? A good number of the larger firms were partnerships. How did businessmen attempt to reconcile interests of family with obligations to their business partners? Even with these questions unanswered, however, Grassby's book is a valuable resource that also raises intriguing questions for all interested in the evolution of the premodern business family.