Glasgow Entrepreneurs, 1861-1901

Entrepreneurial micro-businesses once dominated the streetscapes of Britain's towns and cities and were considered central to their success. What businesses existed, where they were situated, and who ran them are key to understanding how and why particular cities 'work', and are an essential part of wider debates about the historical development and transformation of economies.

Knowing that entrepreneurship has always been a driver of employment, skills, and innovation, as well as providing an income to diverse, and often marginalized, groups in society (Audretsch et al. 2015; Barker, 2017; Bennet et al., 2018), the understanding of entrepreneurship however lacked a study of the dynamics of business formation in a nineteenth-century city.

This data collection originated in a research project entitled 'The entrepreneurs who made Glasgow: the city and its businesses 1861-1901'. It focussed on the space, place and people of Glasgow during a critical period of its expansion, when it became Scotland's principal city and Britain's second city. In the period 1861 to 1901, new professional and commercial activities transformed Glasgow, benefitting from its population’s diversity in gender, age and nationality.