Plantation agencies
Harrison & Crosfield was one of a number of British firms that controlled plantations across south-east Asia through the agency system. The development of a plantation required committing substantial capital for a period of years before the first crops matured. Typically, the agency would provide all the administration, technical, financial and commercial expertise but the capital would be raised externally. Frequently, the capital came from a London Stock Exchange flotation, with the agency acting as secretary. The agency might subscribe for only a few per cent of the capital but it exercised effective control. An indication of the profusion of these quoted plantation companies is that, to take a year at random, there were 79 of them in 1935.
Harrisons & Crosfield handled too many agencies to detail separately. The first venture was the purchase of the small Hopton tea estate in Ceylon; Hopton in turn was one of four estates consolidated into the Lunuva Tea Company in 1907. In India, a Calcutta branch was opened in 1900 promoting the export of tea to North America. Extensive purchases of land were made in southern India leading to the formation of the East India Tea and Produce Company, the Malayalam Rubber and Produce Company and the Meppadi Wynaad Tea Company.
The turn of the century saw the development of the rubber plantation, natural rubber previously being tapped in the wild in South America. The Straits Plantations Ltd (operating in the then Straits Settlements) transferred to the Harrisons & Crosfield agency in 1902 but later companies were formed by Harrisons to buy smaller estates and group them into larger company structures. The Pataling Rubber Estates Syndicate was formed in 1903; Golden Hope Rubber Estate and Anglo-Malay Rubber in 1905; and London Asiatic Rubber and Produce in 1907. In that same year Lampard visited Sumatra and repeated the consolidation process that had taken place in Malaya. Tandjong Rubber Company and United Serdang (Sumatra) Rubber Plantations were both formed and floated. In 1909 holdings in many of the tea and rubber companies were transferred to the Rubber Plantations Investment Trust which was also floated.
Operations
The business is organised into two divisions: Performance Specialties and Personal Care.
