Prof. Robert Bennett, MA, PhD, FBA is Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge; Senior Associate, Cambridge Judge Business School; Visiting Professor in Economic History, London School of Economics, United Kingdom officially joined our Chambers of Commerce – International Research Group as a Corresponding Member.
Prof. Robert Bennett is an expert on small businesses and entrepreneurship, local economic development and public finance. He was commissioned to produce the 1991 Development Strategy for the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) national association, and its update in 2002. This forms the foundation for the BCC Accreditation process for local chambers. In 2005 he initiated a project on chamber of commerce history in the Atlantic world. The main outputs of this were published in two monographs: Local Business Voice: The history of Chambers of Commerce in Britain, Ireland and Revolutionary America, 1760-2011, Oxford University Press, 2011 (also available as an e-book; it contains a major appendix listing the location of all local and national chamber archival sources); The Voice of Liverpool Business: The first chamber of commerce and the Atlantic economy, 1774-c.1796, Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, 2010. The key background archival materials for these books are reproduced in The Documents of the first Chambers of Commerce in Britain and Ireland, 1767-1839, British Academy and Oxford University Press, Records of Social and Economic History, 2017. Much other data on UK chambers is contained in the website:
https://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/chambersofcommerce/
