Small Businessmen and their Credit Transactions in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain

This article uses a little known body of material, which was generated by the operation of the Insolvent Debtors Courts, to examine the business practices of artisans, shopkeepers, publicans and other small businessmen. It is suggested that the experience of these business failures sheds some light on the dealings of that myriad of small businessmen who nourished the demand side of the economy during the Industrial Revolution. The ubiquity of credit transactions at the lowest level of enterprise and the economic vulnerability they induced are demonstrated and the whole problem of credit management is considered.