The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants
Networks Project - Updated 30 July 2008 The Cozens/Byrnes Merchants
Networks Project - Updated 30 July 2008 
For
a page in Chinese language
about this website,
click on the image of the junk
The two writers/researchers behind this website project are Ken Cozens (in London) and in Australia, Dan Byrnes.
The Cozens/Byrnes team formed in late 2005 after prolonged e-mail discussions, to pursue the ideas and work of historians working on Merchant Networks. Not work on merchants as individuals, more on the networks they are part of ...
The periods we are working on for this website are roughly 1700-1900. We have developed an outlook for these topics which we term - hub-to-fringe. (Or, metropolis-to-colonies, and back again.) The idea is to regard London as the hub of commercial events as the boundaries of the British Empire change; in particular, as Australasia is drawn into changing British networks after the American Revolution. We then treat topics - and merchant networks - arising in a zoom-in/zoom-out fashion, moving from hub-to-fringe, and back again.
For more information on the kinds of methodology to be used for this, a file is now in preparation ...
(For those interested, some books of recent origin on merchant networks are briefly noted in the Bibliography for this website. )
For those who enjoy Economic History ... There is in fact, nothing new about English-speaking historians writing about merchant networks. What we, Cozens and Byrnes, hope to do that is new, is to draft a website that hopes to put fresh energy into the kinds of historical curiosities that have usually been used to outline merchant networks in the past - and on a broader scale.
[And, yes, this project could also become something like a surfable book, or a website book ... an idea we first met in the late 1990s, and an idea we feel is well worth pursuing on the Internet in a variety of formats!]
(Please Note: Where " -Ed" is referred to in various files, it mostly refers to Dan Byrnes as the webmaster for this project)
If you or someone you know are interested in the topics treated on this website, you might like to keep in touch by either email or ordinary mail. Not everybody is interested in Internet technology, and we would also be interested in knowing of interesting, old, out-of-copyright treatments which may have been neglected. Or, graphics material. If remaining interesting, such treatments could well qualify for lodgement on this website (?). But please see the note below for any intending contributors.
Contact: For e-mail or snail mail. Please send any e-mail in plain text (ASCII) only.
Kenneth
J. Cozens,
C/- Suzanne Bowles, Greenwich Maritime Institute,
University of Greenwich,
Park Row, Greenwich London UK SE10 9LS
E-mail to Ken Cozens per: kencozens@yahoo.co.uk
Dan Byrnes,
Unit 4,
145 Marsh Street,
Armidale NSW 2350 Australia.
Phone (02) 6771 5243
Dan Byrnes: E-mail: danbyrnes@merchantnetworks.com.au -
 About the authors: Ken Cozens has had a long interest in Thames-side history and British maritime history. He gained his Masters degree in History at Greenwich University in 2005. (At Greenwich Maritime Institute.)  Pictures: Kenneth J. Cozens (colour) and Dan Byrnes (b/w). |
| Dan Byrnes has a deep interest in the history of convict transportation from England/Britain to both North America and Australia, and associated questions. He gained an Honours degree in History from University of New England (Australia) in 1996. 
|
Kenneth
J. Cozens,
Greenwich
University / Greenwich Maritime Institute, 2005: Dissertation to MA in
Maritime History:
See: Kenneth James Cozens, Politics, Patronage and Profit: A Case Study
of Three 18th Century London Merchants.
Credits List: Merchants Networks website: The compilers of this project, Dan Byrnes and Ken Cozens, would like to express gratitude to the following who have assisted this project in various ways (not in any particular order).
(1) Computer programmer, Graeme Wright of Wrightway Design (websites and multimedia) of Uralla NSW. Graeme has used his LAMP and PHP programming skills to finish off a database idea for use by maritime historians. The test version of the database has been online since its launch date of 29 July 2008. You can consult the database here.
Or, if you want to fully note the address: http://dbyrnes.wrightwaydesign.com.au/index.php
(2) Many b/w graphics used here are from the image bank of
old-fashioned clip art managed by Joan O'Donavan (Sydney) Visit her
website at: (Oops, that now-old URL seems to have been hijacked by an
on-line gambling casino!):
Joan O'Donovan's Old Fashioned Clip Art.
(3) Nick Steele (Australia), digital photographs 2006 (of Trinity House, London).
(4) Pieter Dickson (UK) for historical pictures of Jamaica and several useful articles from his ongoing research work.
(5) Owen Wigg (Armidale/Sydney), for computer programming support. Alan Chambers (Armidale) for advice on using Joomla! and various other PHP-driven packages, especially WordPress. For other computer support, Gerry Pattrson in Melbourne (on Linux systems) and Brian Robson in Sydney.
(6) E-mailers and correspondents various: Pieter Dickson
(Jamaica-UK), Charles Bazalgette, Mollie Gillen (for snail-mail
correspondence in past years), Linda Minor (US), Andros Linklater (US),
Patricia Iseke (NZ, Vale deceased July 2008), Pauline Currien, Chris Pickard (re Isle of Man),
Frances Coakley (re Isle of Man). Penny Graham (UK) for genealogy
updates in 2006. "Anon of Australia" (on NSW genealogies, who really does wish to remain
anonymous!) 
(7) New Merchant Networks logo added 16 February 2007, by Lou Farina of Farina Fotographics of Tamworth, New South Wales, at: www.farina.com.au/
Website design and all HTML by Dan Byrnes.
(By the way, the file-update date on any page given on this website does not necessarily mean any substantive content has been changed. It may refer merely to a page code-check, an update of a technical aspect of the page in question, eg., resizing of a graphic, or placement of a new hyperlink - Ed)
| Kenneth
J. Cozens is a
London-based researcher who has a broad-based first degree with Honours
in Social Sciences with the Open University. Having a life-long interest in eighteenth century Economic History, Sociology and voyages of exploration, particularly in respect to the Asia-Pacific region, Ken later decided to specialize in maritime history and to focus on London merchant networks after taking early retirement from the world of business. Looking for a new challenge he has recently completed an MA in Maritime History which he achieved with Distinction for his case study of three eighteenth century London merchants entitled: Politics, Patronage and Profit: A Case Study of Three 18th Century London Merchants. This was undertaken at the Greenwich Maritime Institute (GMI) which is part of the University of Greenwich in London. The course was under the supervision of professors Sarah Palmer and Roger Knight, two well-respected and leading experts in their respective fields of merchant and naval history. Ken is currently assisting them with their new, three-year joint project with the National Maritime Museum , Sustaining the Empire Project, which is centred on the victualling of the navy during the Napoleonic period and on the relationship between the private mercantile, and public sectors in respect of supply and finance of the navy. Here Ken’s expertise and research on London merchant networks will be called upon. The school also offers specialist post-graduate teaching in other maritime studies, such as business and policy, and has therefore introduced Ken to many other leading international scholars working in the fields of maritime and social history, with whom he often corresponds. Ken's work is now fully focussed on his continuing interest in and the importance of the social and global business connections of London’s maritime world and the influence of the ‘shipping interest’, particularly in the eighteenth century maritime enclave of Wapping. After establishing and maintaining lengthy e-mail with Dan Byrnes over their shared interest in Camden, Calvert & King, the London Slavers, and sharing much information, it was perhaps inevitable that Ken would join forces with Dan, whose research he greatly respects, in this new exciting project which they both feel has much to offer and goes a long way by explaining many factors previously ignored or under-researched areas, on the global connections of merchants over specific timeframes of history; timeframes, which encompassed many world-shaping events. See websites: Greenwich Maritime Institute: http://ils-web.gre.ac.uk/schools/gmi and also: http://www.gre.ac.uk/pr/pressreleases/A1192.htm For information from Dan Byrnes' CV, see his CV. |
| To find your way to more files on Merchant Networks topics related either chronologically, or alphabetically by merchant surname, go to the main file of Listings. |
This website in time will welcome contributions from interested writers. (Or, photographers.) Please send an enquiry e-mail beforehand re the format.
The style used for history-writing here, as to text-handling, is straightforward and is based on that of the Dept. Religion, History and Classics, University of New England, Australia, and it should be clear as used here. (The editor, without further explanation, disapproves of use of the Harvard style of footnoting!)
It would be helpful if intending contributors remained aware that all HTML appearing on this website is hand-executed for the simple reason that (IMHO), the efforts of Microsoft and the open-source software movement notwithstanding, there is still not so far available a suite of software which allows a useful uniformity of data-formatting for the range of data needing to be handled in terms of any self-respecting (ie., long-term?) history research project. Website methodology for creating footnotes is still deficient.
Not when word-processed documents, (old files/old software, new files/new software), e-mail input, well-protected PDF files, material hijacked from a variety of websites, etc., might all need to be stirred into a data-processing environment before something useful is produced.
For the record, this website was produced on a Microsoft box, with quite a varied range of software installed, which is NOT connected to the Internet, in order to protect it from Net-nasties. Instead, the Microsoft box is networked to a Linux box which is connected to the Net, and which acts as a buffer against Net nasties.
In this way, any intending contributors using old/ outdated /inadequate software should not even think about enquiring, unless they know how to turn their data back to raw ASCII (eg., a .txt file format), which can be handled with ease here at the cost of any editing time needed to make information presentable.
Data-handling problems can also arise due to the many different databases available for genealogical work. Again, the simplest way to transmit such information (if not via a .gedcom file) is via a .txt file derived from output from the database. And, probably, some explanatory e-mail as well.
Most basic text-handling for this website is
done using Microsoft Word or Open Office. (Open Office might be used
here more often since it can be used more easily to produce a HTML file
(with footnotes) from a word processed document, than can Microsoft
Word. Open Office as well does not produce such bloated HTML code as
Word does. HTML files sent from contributors from MS Word or Front Page
will not be handled by this webmaster!)
Most but not all of this website was executed in Dreamweaver MX, but Open Office HTML pages are often used to work-up draft material. - Ed
This website began its formal life on the Net on 4 July 2006. But the website began as a set of files which were part of a personal home page managed by Dan Byrnes in Australia, from May 2006. The intention was to explore Internet-resourced ways to improve some particular outlooks on economic/maritime history.
In time, after planning a navigation style that catered acceptably for the simultaneous presentation of multiple timeframes in history, the webmaster loaded a great many mini-websites on genealogy, as output from his genealogy database, PAFV5, on families noted for mariner and/or mercantile endeavour, of the UK, North America, British-India and Australia.
On 4 July, 2004, after further discussions between the producers, Cozens/Byrnes, the website was re-launched on its own new website, with its own and new domain name (www.merchantnetworks.com.au/), on a server managed by Chariot ISP, Australia. This server allowed for 50mg of space and one database.
By 27 July 2006 on this website, amid a variety of experiments, Admin was testing DokuWiki for this website as a content management system for the possible use of contributors. But as it happened, Dokuwiki lost out to the use of WordPress and Joomla! for this website's future content management systems.
On 30 July 2006, in a very intensive sessions, Joomla! content management system and WordPress (PHP-managed software for Bloggers), were added to the server. (Dokuwiki, which is particularly good for thetype of footnotes usually preferred by historians, had also been tested as a way for contributors to lodge material on the website, but was finally decided against.)
By 1 August, 2006, Cozens and Byrnes, partly for reasons of pressure of time, decided to reserve WordPress for the use only of contributors considering merchant networks active after 1900, if they so wish. That is, the hope was, the main website, and material in Joomla, would carry little information on matters dated later than 1900. By 1 August, 2006, another 50mg of space on the server had been ordered, and so, the producers were now considering using up to another 56 megabytes of text and graphics material to the website. It is planned to add another database to the server in due course - a database to carry information on ship voyages (the data model for this database is not yet complete but may be improved for 2007).
So, this website began on the Net on 4 July 2006. On 4-9-2006 due to an ISP's accident, the website was destroyed on its server, then re-uploaded, but was mostly unavailable on the Net for a fraught ten following days. All the website had been backed-up, except for a recent WordPress installation for contributions lodged by interested e-mailers, which was destroyed; and it might not reappear before further research on technical problems has been undertaken. So, on 19-9-2006 a basic guestbook was added to the website to help us keep track of the website's interested e-mailers. With various website re-planning, the fusionbot site-specific search engine had gone awry, fixed by 14 October 2006.
By 20 November 2006 it has been decided to delete the Guestbook entirely, due to abuse of it by spammers and other net-filth. By 20 November 2006 also began a major upgrade of the website, generally in terms of technical aspects (and so, mostly invisible to the netsurfer), rather than regarding the existing content.
It had been hoped that the use of Joomla would be unveiled by mid-August, 2006. It is still uncertain if we shall ever get around to using Joomla! The best laid plans of mice and men, etc ... Nothing useful happened.
On 25 March, 2007, a translation of promotional text for the website was added in Simplified Chinese. Translation courtesy of Sheryl Deng-Gate of Armidale NSW Australia.
Tech update: 26 July 2008: This website is made with open source software/web editor kit Quanta Plus as produced with a
Linux system running ... 
By late June 2007, the computer producing this website was running Linux/Ubuntu (Feisty Fawn V7.04), meaning, Microsoft and/or Windows-based software was no longer being used (except for a Windows-based genealogy database which now operates successfully under WINE). By late June, 2007, a new javascripted system (from Justin Whan, Armidale NSW 2350 Australia) was being tested to handle paid avertising on the website. Tests for this were complete by 22 July and preparations were made to seek paid advertising for this website. -Ed
Follows a set of remarks on using Linux/Ubuntu so far ... By July 2008, this webmaster had been so pleased with running Ubuntu software that he upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04, and turned a secondary machine to use of Ubuntu 8.04 as well. There is almost nothing required for the work of maintaining and improving this website that Ubuntu's software cannot do. So the situation continues - goodbye to Microsoft and all that!
Dan Byrnes over some years has produced the following material on matters in maritime and other history...
November, 1994, A Bitter Pill: An assessment of the significance of the meeting between Thomas Jefferson and Duncan Campbell of the British Creditors in London, 23 April, 1786. (Updated 1996 and later.) Total words, 35,037. Available via website
December, 1993, 'From Glasgow to Jamaica to London and Australia: the elusive Duncan Campbell (1726-1803)', Cruachan, No. 62, December, 1993. (The Journal of the Clan Campbell Society of Australia). Short article.
1992-1993 - Grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council to complete a biography of Duncan Campbell (1726-1803) the overseer of the Thames River prison hulks 1776-1801. Book completed (draft of 400,000 words).
1990 - Dan Byrnes, 'The Blackheath Connection: London Local History and the Settlement at New South Wales, 1786-1806', as published in The Push: A Journal of Early Australian Social History, No. 28, 1990., pp. 50-98. ISSN 0155 8633. ISBN 0 646 09384 3. (Updated, 1996 and later) Total words, 31,776. Available via website.
1990 - Dan Byrnes, “Commentary” to Wilfrid Oldham, Britain's Convicts to the Colonies. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1990. ISBN 0 908120 77 X.
1988 - Dan Byrnes, 'Outlooks for the English South Whale Fishery, 1782-1800, and "the great Botany Bay debate"', The Great Circle, Vol. 10, No. 2, October, 1988., pp. 79-102. ISSN 0156-8698. (On the strategies used by British whalers to open up the Pacific Ocean. Written before discovery of The Blackheath Connection in 1989 - updated, 1996). Total words, 19,319. Available via website.
1988 - Dan Byrnes and Frank Crosling, (Eds.), Who Was Who in Tamworth Business in 1988. Tamworth, Tamworth and District Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1988. (Local history, compilation).
1987 - Dan Byrnes, '"Emptying The Hulks": Duncan Campbell and the First Three Fleets to Australia', The Push from the Bush: A Bulletin of Social History, April, 1987., pp. 2-23. ISSN 0155 8633. Updated 1996. Total words, 11,595. Available via website.
1987 - Dan Byrnes - noted as an Australian poet in The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia. 1987. (under “Tamworth”).
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Dan Byrnes’ work in early Australian history has been cited
in the following titles (and on a wide variety of websites):
Cited December 2005 in Kenneth James Cozens, Politics, Patronage and Profit: A Case Study of Three 18th Century London Merchants. (MA thesis)
September 2005: Major new citation of website The Blackheath Connection: In Tom Keneally, The Commonwealth of Thieves: The Sydney Experiment. Milson's Point, NSW, Random House, 2005.
Maxine Lorraine Darnell, The Chinese Labour Trade to New South Wales. 1783-1853: An Exposition of Motives and Outcomes. University of New England, Armidale, Australia. January 1997. Ph.D. thesis.
Anthony Twist, Cambridge (town), England, a forthcoming biography of “the father of Lloyd’s of London”, John Julius Angerstein.
Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia. A History. Vol. 1. Melbourne, OUP, 1997.
Alan Frost, Botany Bay Mirages: Illusions of Australia's Convict Beginnings. Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1994.
Alan Atkinson, 'The Free-born Englishman Transported: Convict Rights as a Measure of Eighteenth Century Empire', Past and Present, a journal of historical studies, No. 144, August, 1994., pp. 88-115. (Note 72).
Charles Campbell, The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776-1857. Bowie, Maryland, Heritage Books, Inc., 1994.
Michael Flynn, The Second Fleet: Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790. Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1993.
Kate Thomas, A Biographical Appraisal of John Hunter RN (1737-1821). (Hons Thesis) University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 1992.
Rhys Richards, 'The Cruise of the Kingston and the Elligood in 1800 and the Wreck Found on King Island in 1802', The Great Circle, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1991., pp. 35-53. (Note 28).
Dr Alan Atkinson, 'State and Empire and Convict Transportation, 1718-1812', pp. 25ff in Carl Bridge (Ed.), New Perspectives in Australian History. London, Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 1990.
Roger J. B. Knight, 'The First Fleet, Its State and Preparation, 1786-1787', pp. 121-136, in John Hardy and Alan Frost, Studies from Terra Australis to Australia. Canberra, Occasional Paper No 6, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1988. (Dr. Knight at that time was a senior staff member of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London).
Follows brief notes on the website's history: The website
began as a set of files which were part of a personal home page managed
by Dan Byrnes in Australia, from May 2006. The intention was to explore
Internet-resourced ways to improve some particular outlooks on
economic/maritime history.
In time, after planning a navigation style that catered acceptably for
the simultaneous presentation of multiple timeframes in history, the
webmaster loaded a great many mini-websites on genealogy, as output
from his genealogy database, PAFV5, on families noted for mariner
and/or mercantile endeavour, of the UK, North America, British-India
and Australia. On 4 July, 2004, after further discussions between
Cozens/Byrnes, the website was re-launched on its own new website, with
its own and new domain name (www.merchantnetworks.com.au/), on a server
managed by Chariot ISP, Australia. This server allowed for 50mg of
space and one database. On 30 July 2006, in a very intensive sessions, Joomla!
content management system and WordPress
(PHP-managed software for Bloggers), were added to the server. (Dokuwiki,
which is particularly good for thetype of footnotes usually preoferred
by historians, had also been tested as a way for contributors to lodge
material on the website, but was finally decided against.)
By 1 August, 2006, Cozens and Byrnes, partly for reasons of pressure of
time, decided to reserve WordPress for the use only
of contributors considering merchant networks active after 1900, if
they so wish. That is, the main website, and material in Joomla, would
carry little information on matters dated later than 1900. By 1 August,
2006, another 50mg of space on the server had been ordered, and so, the
producers were now considering using up to another 56 megabytes of text
and graphics material to the website. It is planned to add another
database to the server in due course - a database to carry information
on ship voyages (the data model for this database is not yet complete).
Web stats from www.statcounter.com/ for this website begun 4 July 2006
