ECONOMIC HISTORY SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE
28 – 30 MARCH 2014
NEW RESEARCHERS’ SESSION II
IIC: BUSINESS PRACTICES
The principal-agent problem revisited:
supercargoes and commanders of the China trade
Meike Fellinger
(University of Warwick)
m.fellinger@warwick.ac.uk
Twitter use welcome
Part I:
Historiographical
background
Part II:
Case study on Charles
Irvine
Conclusions
Charles Irvine of Drum (1693-1771)
Born and died in Aberdeen
After 1715 Jacobite exile in France
Merchant in Rouen in the 1720s
Entered the Indies Trade via the
Ostend Company
Between 1733-46 made six voyages
as supercargo for the SEIC
Became major wholesale merchant
and tea smuggler
Thank you for your attention!
The research for this presentation was generously funded by the
European Research Council Advanced Grant Scheme
If you have any further questions, please contact:
m.fellinger@warwick.ac.uk
Swedish East India Company ship Three Crowns 1736/37
Appointment
1st supercargo
2nd supercargo
3rd supercargo
4th supercargo
Personal assistants
Captain
Captain
First Pilot
Second Pilot
Third Pilot
Fourth Pilot
Captain's assistant
Captain's assistant
Captain's assistant
Chaplain
Boatswain
Surgeon
Carpenter
2nd carpenter
Totals:
Name
Privilege cargo/last Equivalent in cases Commission on net profits in %
Charles Irvine
2 1/2
20
2 1/2
John Pike
2
16
2
Gerard Barry
1
8
1
Charles Hofwardt
1/2
4
1/2
together
3/8
1 previously agreed sum
Petter von Utfall
1
8
0
Thomas Neilson
1
8
0
Dyrik Aget
3/4
6
0
Pieter Dens
1/2
4
0
Thomas Ouchterlony
1/4
2
0
Martinus Mars
1/8
1
0
Jacques von Utfall
7/8
1
0
Petter van Kampe
7/8
1
0
Alexander Cumming
7/8
1
0
Sven Frisk
1/8
1
0
Christian Stare
1/8
1
0
Jonas Munck
1/8
1
0
Jacques Rose
1/8
1
0
Mungo Murray
1/2
0
13 1/8
85,5
6
Private commissions
Model in ivory of a Chinese pleasure barge, mid-eighteenth-century, at Osterley
Park. Copyright: NTPL/Dennis Gilbert.
Armorial and other
custom-made Chinese
porcelain, reverse mirror
paintings