The Quaker Lloyds in the Industrial Revolution (review)

112QUAKER HISTORY stitutions as Haverford College and Twelfth Street Meeting succumbed. Social historians are forced to select those individuals whom they see as significant, but I am puzzled why there is no account of the impact of Hannah Whitall Smith's devotional writings and the omission from the discussion of business of Joseph Wharton, a Friend who must be ranked among the major entrepreneurs of the period. These few weaknesses do not detract from the many solid virtues of this book. Philadelphia Quakerism is a major contribution to the study of the history of the Society of Friends and will stand for years as a monument to the superb scholarship of Philip Benjamin. Swarthmore CollegeJ. William Frost The Quaker Lloyds in the Industrial Revolution. By Humphrey Lloyd. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1975. xiv and 332 pages. Illus. £6.75 in U.K. While there is no shortage of books about Quakers generally, we are sadly deficient in the field of economic history, and thus it is a pleasure to receive this new book about the Lloyd family. While the emphasis is upon members of the family who were prominent in the early years of die iron industry, and in banking, dire is much more. These Lloyds, like the prominent Quaker physician, minister and politician , Thomas Lloyd, early Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania and friend of William Penn, are descended from Charles Lloyd of Dolobran, in Montgomeryshire . Six generations, beginning with Thomas' brother Charles Lloyd II (1637-1698), brings the family down into the first part of the nineteenth century, and moves much of it into London and the new industrial city of Birmingham. The Lloyds of Dolobran were gentry, living off the income of the manor, and it was not until near the end of the 17th century that Charles Lloyd III expanded his business by leasing a small iron mill or forge. At about the same time his sister Elizabeth married John Pemberton, an iron merchant in Birmingham. In the years which followed, the third member of diat generation, Sampson Lloyd, also moved to Birmingham and entered the iron business. It was during die lifetime of his son, Sampson Lloyd II ( 1699-1 779) , that the family achieved great wealth and importance. While Sampson Lloyd II made his fortune in iron he turned to banking as well. In 1765 he joined John Taylor in opening the first bank in Birmingham , Taylors and Lloyds. However, it was in the next generation diat the family made a great mark in banking when four sons went into banking, and the two daughters married a Hanbury and a Barclay. The most influential member of that generation was Charles Lloyd "the banker" (1748-1828). Most of the Lloyds remained in the Society of Friends until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and most of diem married sons or daughters of other Quaker manufacturers, merchants or bankers. Thus they entered that complicated network of Quakers in the business world which has been written about by Arthur Raistrick, Paul H. Emden, and Isabel Grubb. In the nineteenth century a number of die family married non-Friends and left the Society. Some, like Charles Lloyd "die poet," his brother Robert, and his sister Priscilla who married a Wordsworth, left die business BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES113 world altogether to join the poetry coterie in die Lake District. Their younger sister Anna, however, who married Isaac Braithwaite, became a famous minister and the ancestor of several generations of influential Quaker leaders. This is a very interesting volume, well documented, handsomely illustrated, and an important contribution to economic history generally, as well as Quaker economic history. It complements two other books about the Lloyds. Samuel Lloyd's The Lloyds of Birmingham covered much the same period, but with a much greater emphasis upon biography. R. S. Sayers' Lloyds Bank in the History of English Banking is largely dedicated to the period after the conclusion of Humphrey Lloyd's study. The author has provided many explanatory paragraphs in the book, and one would have appreciated at least a footnote to point Out that Edward Lloyd and Lloyds of London are not connected in any way with the Lloyds of Dolobran and their descendants . Haverford...