The Role of Foreign-born Agents in the Development of Mass Migrant Travel through Britain, 1851-1924

Evans, Nicholas J.

Abstract

This chapter examines how Britain profited from the foreign component of the passenger trade through the employment of foreign-born agents in the development of British business ventures. It considers the role of commercial agents, translators, and lodging-house keepers on land, and merchant marines, Lascar seamen, and various maritime crew at sea, in effort to determine how pivotal foreign-born labour was to the British shipping industry. It argues that without the aid of foreign-born agents, British shipping companies would have lost their competitive international advantage fairly quickly. By analysing the British emigration market over the course of the nineteenth century; the activity of British ports; and actions of British shipping companies including Cunard and White Star, it concludes that foreign agents ensured that the revolution in transoceanic passenger shipping flowed through British companies, rectifying the historical assumption that foreign agents took advantage of the British market.

Citation

Evans, N. J. (2007). The Role of Foreign-born Agents in the Development of Mass Migrant Travel through Britain, 1851-1924. In T. Feys, L. R. Fischer, S. Hoste, & S. Vanfraechem (Eds.), Maritime Transport and Migration: The Connections between Maritime and Migration Networks (49–62). Liverpool University Press. https://doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9780973893434.003.0004

• Online Publication Date: Sep 20, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2007
• Deposit Date: Jun 12, 2024
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Pages: 49–62
• Series Title: Research in Maritime History
• Series Number: 33
• Book Title: Maritime Transport and Migration: The Connections between Maritime and Migration Networks
• ISBN: 9780973893434
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5949/liverpool/9780973893434.003.0004
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4708421