Dr David Clayton

Associate Researcher

Research interests

David Clayton's past work concerned British/Chinese political and economic relations in the 1950s. He is now working on aspects of Hong Kong's economic and political development post 1945 and Hong Kong/UK economic and political relations post 1945.

He also has interests in East Asian development, business organisation, Chinese international and economic history and the history of the British empire in the 20th century. He is currently examining information communication technologies in the British Empire, c.1920-1960, with an initial focus on radio broadcasting.

Current research projects

(Listed in order of priority)

• From Confucian to Colonial Capitalism: industrialisation and institutional change in Hong Kong, 1950-1970: 2002-4, funded by The Leverhulme Trust; 2004-6.
• Consuming ICTs in LDCs: broadcast technologies in the British Empire, 1946-66 (with Prof. Sue Bowden, at Centre for Historical Economic and Related Research at York): pilot research undertaken.
• The politics of decline: the British cotton textile industry, 1945-60.

He is willing to supervise research in any of these fields.

Selected publications

Authored books

Imperialism Revisited: political and ecnonomic relations between Britain and China, 1950-54 (Houndill, Basingstoke and New York: Macmillan, 1997).

Selected articles

'Industrialisation and institutional change in Hong Kong, 1842-1960', in A.J.H. Latham an Heita Kawakatsu, eds., Asia Pacific Dynamism 1550-2000 (London: Routledge, 2000).

'A Hong Kong knitting factory in 1933: its reconstruction from bankruptcy court records', The Journal of Industrial History, Volume 3 (2000), Number 2, pp. 51-70.

'British Foreign Economic Policy Towards China, 1949-60', electronic Journal of International History (December 2000).

'Free trade, protection and the British Empire in the 1950s: some evidence from a hong Kong case study', The University of York, Discussion Papers in Economics, No. 99/10.
‘The consumption of radio broadcast technologies in Hong Kong, c. 1930-1960', Economic History Review (November 2004).

‘Inter-Asian competition for the British market in cotton textiles: the political economy of Anglo-Asian cartels, c.1932-1960', in A. J. H. Latham and Heita Kawakatsu, eds., Inter-Asian Competition for the World Market since the Sixteenth Century (London: Routledge, 2005).