Richard Potter, Beatrice Webb’s Father and Corporate Capitalist

Existing studies of the Potter family tend to see Richard Potter through the lens of his most famous daughter, the socialist Beatrice Webb, or through Beatrice and her eight siblings, all girls. In this book, their father, whose business activities sustained the family’s upper-middle-class lifestyle and social position, is the subject of study in his own right.

He was a new kind of businessman, a corporate capitalist, who operated on an international stage. This book looks inside the principal companies in which Potter was the chairman (the Great Western and Canadian Grand Trunk railways and the Gloucester Wagon Company) to assess his business acumen and his relationships with other leading business figures including Daniel Gooch, Edward Watkin and William Price.

It also examines in detail Potter’s relationships with his wife and daughters, describing how he drew them into some of his key business decisions, and how he recognised the individuality of his daughters, encouraging them to read and think outside conventional boundaries, and to engage with famous intellectuals, most notably Herbert Spencer his life-long friend, who were part of the family circle, so shaping their lives as distinctive and strong adults. Beatrice had no doubt that he played a key part in shaping her professional life.


Geoffrey Channon is Professor Emeritus of History and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of the West of England. His publications include Railways in Britain and the United States, 1830-1940. Studies in Economic and Business History (2001).

“Geoffrey Channon has produced a painstaking, thoughtful and ingenious work of historical reconstruction which should provoke discussion for years. He retrieves and explains the lost story of Richard Potter, who, as chairman of the Great Western Railway in England and as President of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada, bestrode the Atlantic and set the pattern for a Victorian international capitalist.”
Richard Davenport-Hines
Biographer of W.H. Auden and John Maynard Keynes; recipient of the Wolfson Prize for History

“Biography often runs the risk of being too narrowly focused and uncritical. This one adroitly avoids both pitfalls. Potter is placed first in the contented and liberal domestic context in which he was always anchored, with his daughter Beatrice following in his wife’s footsteps as confidante and adviser. But it moves far beyond this in its assessment of Potter’s involvement in the Great Western and Canadian Grand Trunk railways and the Hudson’s Bay Company and his links with Russia in the 1850s and 1860s. Changes in the Victorian political and business worlds are clearly drawn and leading intellectuals such as Hebert Spencer and social reformers and commentators such as Charles Booth are integral figures in the story.”
R.C. Richardson
Emeritus Professor of History, University of Winchester; Times Higher Education, 2 January 2020

"An insightful, multi-layered and meticulously researched biography of Beatrice Webb’s father, a neglected figure in 19th century entrepreneurial and railway history. It provides a fascinating account of the ups and downs of a Victorian corporate capitalist who was determined to secure the financial independence of his nine daughters."

Dr Terry Gourvish Former Director, Business History Unit at the London School of Economics and President of the Association of Business Historians.

“This is a meticulously researched and beautifully written book which strikes a very successful balance between credibility based on academic rigour and an accessible style. The subject is Richard Potter, a wealthy mid to late Victorian businessman (1817–92), and as the title suggests, it is a story about business career, but also about a man’s life. This is a harder task than it might appear. A strictly thematic approach may end up being unrealistically compartmentalised, while a chronological blow by blow account risks becoming lost in the details. Despite these challenges, Geoffrey Channon strikes another good equilibrium here. […] I thoroughly recommend this book to business, transport and even social historians, and it is an enjoyable read of itself.”
James Fowler,
University of Essex, UK; Journal of Transport History, 2020

"This book illuminates work and family life in the nineteenth century while at the same time stimulating thoughts about our world today. The subject is a corporate capitalist in an international world, wheeling and dealing in a way which reminds one of the global capitalists of the 21st century. The book includes an account of how Richard Potter and his partners organised the supply of huts to shelter the soldiers freezing in the Crimean winter, thus saving many lives, showing up the inefficiency of the government and creating substantial profits for themselves. Many books on global capitalists spend little time on the family life of their subjects. However, this book makes it clear that Richard Potter was a loving husband and a devoted father. He valued his wife’s advice on financial matters and took pains to ensure that his daughters were well educated and could hold their own in intellectual debates, often taking them with him on business trips. His style of fathering shaped the life of his daughter Beatrice, who became Beatrice Webb, one of the founders of the British welfare state."

Jan Pahl Professor Emeritus of Social Policy, University of Kent, UK

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-5275-3106-6

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-3106-2

Release Date: 10th June 2019

Pages: 303

Price: £61.99

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ISBN: 1-5275-6467-3

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-6467-1

Release Date: 22nd March 2021

Pages: 303

Price: £25.99

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