In the late 19th century, corporate histories were initially written by
Victorian era businessmen, either the founder of a company himself, members of the surviving family owners or long-serving employees. Rather than being sequential histories, as is now done, many of them were
diary-type personal recollections or short, superficial
public relations exercises. One of the earliest corporate histories, that of a publishing company in the UK called the Catnach Press, was done in 1886. A notable early US corporate history, published in 1902, was that of
Standard Oil. Academic involvement probably started in 1924 when
George Unwin and co-author George Taylor published a detailed history,
Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights: The Industrial Revolution at Stockport and Marple. It was published by the Manchester University Press. Between the World Wars, the majority of business histories, and especially in the UK, were house histories, consisting mainly of reminiscences and anecdotes. Only a tiny handful of serious work existed using business records which had found their way into museums, county record offices or the private possession of collectors. Corporate histories were typically unplanned. Relevant records were often discovered by chance and deemed interesting enough to turn into historical narratives which were funded either by the family descendants of the long-dead businessmen in question or, less frequently, the author in association with a publisher. They had one thing in common - they were generally records of companies that had died or otherwise dropped out of sight. One exception occurred In 1938, when the
Bank of England commissioned a two-volume 250-year anniversary history. Written by
J. H. Clapham, professor of economic history at Cambridge, it took six years to produce. It was a deliberately celebratory vehicle for this famous British institution. Modern corporate history took a large conceptual step in 1947 when the then chairman of
Unilever, Geoffrey Heyworth (later
Lord Heyworth) approached
G. N. Clark, who had led the national campaign against the destruction of business records, for his advice on writing the history Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch manufacturing company. Clark, who had just become a professor of modern history at Oxford, suggested as author a younger colleague,
Charles Wilson. The result was a classic, two-volume work that transformed the writing of business history in the UK from a public relations exercise into a reputable branch of scholarship. Wilson's work, about one of western Europe's most important companies, made him the father of modern corporate histories in the UK. == Current practices ==