Birchalls Bookshop, 1844-2000

Abstract

Birchalls bookshop was established in 1844 and ceased trading in 2017. It was a family owned business, which had been an icon of Tasmanian retailing and of the Australian booktrade for generations. Finally it succumbed to commercial and succession pressures with the business gradually being wound down and the premises sold. It is of scholarly interest as a small business in a regional economy, which was exceptional in surviving the vicissitudes of time, place and industry over this remarkably long period. This study looks at the detail of how that was achieved. It conducted over many years, during which the author was a Professor of Management at the University of Tasmania and the University of New South Wales. Several aspects of it have been published but it has taken a period of semi-retirement and sessional teaching in the Research School of Management at the Australian National University to provide the space and impetus to complete the whole and make it available here to fellow researchers and students of Australian business history. Show more