Family networks in Burrell & Son’s shipping business

Speaker: Dr Martin Bellamy

Burrell & Son became one of the UK’s leading tramp shipping companies. Its success lay in using family members within the firm to specialise in different aspects of the business and expanding its commercial network through marriage. A ruthless attitude to competence saw several family members ejected for failing in the eyes of their kin. Ultimately the business folded due to the lack of a suitable family heir.
Martin Bellamy is the Research and Curatorial Manager for Glasgow
Museums, the civic museum service for Glasgow, which includes the Burrell Collection. He is also editor of The Mariner’s Mirror, the leading academic journal of maritime history, and has written several books and articles on shipping and shipbuilding history.
The lecture will be followed by the launch of W.W.J. Knox & A. McKinlay’s new book Jimmy Reid. A Clyde-built man