Trade - Key facts

Navigation Acts (1660-1849)

• Colonial goods produced for export could only be carried on English-built and owned ships

• Certain goods (e.g. tobacco, sugar, cotton) had to be shipped to an English port even if they were to be exported to another European destination

• European imports to British colonies also needed to land at an English port and then be reshipped onwards

• From 1763 they were even more restrictive towards the USA.

National debt

• 157% of GDP in 1763

• 260% of GDP by 1861

Thomas Leyland’s ship ‘The Lottery’

• Sailed in 1798

• Carried 453 enslaved people

• Made a profit of £12,091 - Leyland doubled his money

Abolition

• 1807 abolition of the slave trade

• 1834 abolition of slavery

Adam Smith’s 1776 An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations

• Influenced Pitt the Younger

Trade restrictions on Ireland

Removed 1779

Corn Laws

• Passed 1815

• Repealed 1846

Import tariffs abolished under Peel 1842-46

1200

Britain’s production

• By 1851 Britain was producing around 2/3 of world coal and more than half of cotton cloth

• 19th century - 20 fold increase in coal output – peaked in 1913 with 94m tonnes exported

• By 1913 Britain still had 70% of world trade in textiles

1832 Representation of the People/Great Reform Act

Franchise extended by 60%. 

National surplus

From 1841-44 the British economy moved from £7.5m debt to £4m surplus

World trade

• From the 1840s-1900, the volume of world trade grew tenfold

• 1800-50 only by 2.5

Latin America

By the mid-1800s 7% of British exports went to Latin America

Sugar prices

From 1805-50 sugar prices in Britain dropped 75%

East India Company monopoly

• Lost its monopoly on trade in India in 1813

• Lost monopoly altogether in 1833

Singapore

• In 1819 400,000 Spanish dollars’ worth of trade passed through

• By 1824 the volume had increased 2700% to 11m Spanish dollars

Opium imports into China

• 1775 - 75 tons

• 1800 - 200 tons

• 1822 - 347 tons

• 1839 - 2553 tons (EIC monopoly expired) 4-12m Chinese were regular users

• 1880 - 6500 tons

Hong Kong population

• 1841 - 15,000

• 1900 - 300,000

 1842 Treaty of Nanking

Opened Shanghai to European trade

The Suez Canal opened in 1869

• Cost 433m francs against an estimate of 200m

• 1868-74 steam tonnage from British ports to Asia increased 178%

• By 1874 ¾ of tonnage passing through the canal was British

• Disraeli purchased 44% shares in 1875

Zanzibar

1859-79 volume of European and American shipping docked at Zanzibar grew from 65 ships and 18,877 tons to 96 ships and 95,403 tons