Elite directors, London finance, and British overseas expansion: Victorian railway networks, 1860–1900^†

Abstract

This article considers how international economic expansion impacts on the composition of elite groups on boards of companies. We examine, why, at the height of the British Empire, boards of national, imperial, and international railway companies, financed from London, were dominated by elites drawn differentially from the aristocracy, the military, finance, and politics. To investigate the reasons for these differences, we conduct a social network analysis of railway company boards in three countries during the second half of the nineteenth century. Results reveal that aristocratic directors were dominant in Britain, military directors in India, and financier directors in Argentina, suggesting that their influence drew on local knowledge, resource access, and network connections. They did not serve on boards for merely ornamental purposes.

Review of periodical literature for 2021

“…Following a decline in the stock market in 1937, Keynes's approach for the (more diversified) portfolio of King's was very much ‘buy and hold’, unlike the approach for his own portfolio. Amini and Toms perform social network analyses of the board members of railway companies in Britain, India, and Argentina in the late nineteenth century. Across the three countries, there were differences in board composition; directors with military backgrounds were more prominent on the boards of Indian railways, for example.…”