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Abstract
This paper examines female shareholdings in Australia's first bank, the Bank of New South Wales. Existing descriptions of colonial women have portrayed them generally as domestic servants, farmhands, prostitutes or wives and mothers, rather than as businesswomen or investors. But by 1823 the number of female shareholders represented 31 per cent, almost one-third, of total shareholders. Nevertheless, it seems that women were unable to take advantage of this potentially powerful position. Although they were allowed proxy votes, these could only be exercised by male shareholders. Thus, male shareholders acquired extra voting power through use of female shareholders' proxies, and seemingly employed the extra votes particularly when there were crucial or ‘political’ decisions to be made.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Russell Craig, Simon Ville and Margaret Steven for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. I also thank the staff of the Historical Services Section, Westpac Banking Corporation Ltd, Sydney, for their generous assistance.
Notes
1. This specific time frame was chosen because it is the period covered by the first accounts ledger (April 1817–June 1820) and the first two minute books of the Bank of New South Wales.
2. The colony's status as a penal colony affected conditions for not only convicts, but for free people as well. Convicts dominated the labour market and society became divided into respectable and non-respectable classes, with respectability being prized (Neal, Citation1991: pp. 52–53).
3. ‘Free’ women means those who were not convicts or ex-convicts. Some convicts were pardoned before expiration of their sentence, and were called ‘emancipists’, while others served their sentence or were granted tickets-of-leave (occasionally upon arrival in the colony, for example, John Croaker, see Booker & Craig, Citation2000: p. 77). For the purpose of this paper, all ex-convicts will be termed ‘emancipists’.
4. Mary Reibey is said to be Australia's first (and, by most authors, only) colonial female entrepreneur. She was estimated to be worth £20,000 in 1816 (Steven, Citation1992: p. 53).
5. Aveling Citation(1992) claims that gender helped shape colonial society in that the British government had an ideal gender order in mind with regard to the colony; every man should have a woman who would reproduce. This meant that wives were in subordinate and apolitical roles. Scott Citation(1996) maintains that gender is a primary means of signifying relationships of power. However, in a penal colony like Sydney, issues of power (as government official/officer male dominance) become complicated when gender is considered.
6. Society was composed of free settlers, convicts, emancipists, government officials and military officers. Neal Citation(1991) maintains that this eclectic mix made for different problems and necessitated new rules regarding formal legal positions, for example, who was a fit person to hold public office. One of the biggest issues was whether the English caste system would be recreated in New South Wales (Neal, Citation1991: pp. 16–17).
7. William Roberts, husband of Jane, one of the first female shareholders, was one of the signatories.
8. On 18 December 1816, a general meeting of subscribers (prospective shareholders) elected a committee to frame regulations for the management of the bank. All rules were carried unanimously except for rule no. 7, which was carried on a division. This rule stated that subscribers had to be ‘absolutely and unconditionally free’ to be eligible as directors. That this rule was contested illustrates the distrust that existed among free colonists of convicts. It also indicates that there were some subscribers who did not meet the bank's requirements.
9. There were, however, some exceptions to shareholder acquiescence. On 18 July 1822, at the general meeting called to consider the half-yearly accounts, one of the shareholders (emancipist Francis Ewan Forbes) moved (seconded by Samuel Terry) that the proposed vote of thanks to the directors and president ‘for the able and faithful discharge of their duties’ be amended to substitute the word ‘delinquent’ for ‘faithful’. The motion was carried with the amendment, by a majority of two votes.
10. The bank's second ledger was not retained but a list of shareholders was supplied to Commissioner Bigge in 1821. He was appointed by the British Government to enquire into the colony's administration. Another shareholder list was produced when the second charter of the bank was drawn up in 1823. (Mitchell Library, Bigge Appendix, Bonwick Transcripts Box 27, pp. 6292–6294, 30 December 1821; National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA), Colonial Secretary's Papers, Reel 6040, SZ 1049, p. 2, 31 October 1823).
11. Mary Collits applied for a loan of £25, on security of a land grant of 70 acres, on 27 May 1817, but was only granted the loan ‘on said security being joined therein by her husband Pierce Collits’. Despite the fact that Mary had come free and Pierce was an ex-convict, she was still unable to obtain a loan in her own right. Charlotte Wairs applied for a £20 loan jointly with John Mittens, on 2 September 1817: the loan was approved immediately. Even the BNSW's landlady, Mary Reibey, was unable to obtain a loan (of £500) on 16 February 1820. The board of directors refused, stating that the board had already advanced loans to the full amount of its entitlement by the bank's charter (NLA, Colonial Secretary's Correspondence, 1 July 1803, Fiche 3268, 9/2731, p. 132; WBC, BNSW Directors' Minute Book 1, 27 May 1817; WBC, BNSW ledger, 8 September 1817, ff. 463–464; WBC, BNSW Directors' Minute Book 2, 16 February 1820).
12. By this time he had ceased employment with the BNSW and was permitted to own shares.
13. It is interesting that when the second charter of the bank was formulated in 1823, the chance to alter the voting rights does not seem to have been taken (at least, there is no mention in the minutes that it was). The same voting rights as in the first charter were reiterated. Perhaps the directors at the time and those on the special committee formed to draw up the new charter did not consider existing voting rights to be a problem.
14. The marriage took place on their child's first birthday (ML, Mutch Index).
15. In some colonies however, women secured earlier the right to vote in municipal elections.
16. One of the directors' main tasks at weekly board meetings was discounting bills of exchange and promissory notes.
17. Mary Ann Powell was born in the colony on 17 June 1796, the daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Powell, Edward being a free settler, farmer and victualler and owner of the Half-way House Inn on Parramatta Road (Sydney Gazette, 24 August 1816).
18. Rosetta Terry had come free on the infamous Hillsborough, as the wife of convict Edward Madden. He died on the voyage and she married or was the mistress of convict Henry Marsh. After his death she established herself as an astute businesswoman, providing for her three children. She married Samuel Terry in March 1810 (ADB, 2: p. 508; Clune, Citation1964: p. 71).
19. This result illustrates what Pearson Citation(2002) found with respect to early English joint stock companies: shareholders were frequently outmanoeuvred by the board and other more powerful shareholders. They often had little power and operations were seldom transparent. This seems to have been the case with Terry.
20. The eight new shareholders were Mary Ann Forbes (wife of Francis Ewan), Anne Minchin (wife of the late William – possibly she took over his share. Her proxy was bank president John Piper), Elizabeth Hassall (her proxy was Francis Ewan Forbes), Jemima Jenkins (wife of prominent merchant Robert), Emma Josephson, Sarah Redfern (wife of William), Maria Chalker and Sarah Allman.