Makers of Fortune

A Colonial Business Community and Its Fall

Bibliographic Data

ID3374317
AuthorsForrest Capie, R C J Stone
Year1975
Volume28
Issue1
Pages160
Publication date1975-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2594411
OpenAlexW2094209706
LanguageEN
Citations received8

So many businesses rose and fell in 19th-century Auckland that the city was called a graveyard of enterprise. By far the most serious and general collapse came during the decade of depression and banking crises which overtook the whole colony after 1885. Auckland's commercial elite, which had dominated the city's business for a generation and had launched some of New Zealand's most important financial institutions, was discredited. Some of its members were impoverished. In the 1890s this failure was explained in moralistic terms. It was seen as the just penalty for speculative rashness. This book suggests that although optimism was almost an Auckland trait and was incited by rapid city growth, other economic forces were also at work. There was, for one, the ease with which funds could be obtained from abroad. Many Auckland businessmen tried to make their way by the application of the Victorian ideal of self-help. Some succeeded; other failed after early success. Through contemporary newspapers and business and legal records Dr Stone has traced a story of the fates of individual industries, firms and entrepreneurs, which also illuminates the impulses of colonial business in general

Archaeology · Business · Colonialism · Economics · Management · Australian History and Society · History · New Zealand Economic and Social Studies

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