ABSTRACT
The significance of the career of H.E.Falk lay in his repeated attempts to establish a cartel of Cheshire producers of salt to fix output and prices.1 Falk, who was born in Danzig in 1820, came to England in 1838 and worked for a timber firm in Hull run by his two elder brothers. His first contact with the salt trade was due to the fact that the Falk brothers exported salt to the Baltic in return for importing timber from that region. In 1842 H.E.Falk moved to Liverpool where he became a salt broker and published Falk’s Salt Circular. Next he spent two years in New Brunswick supervising a timber estate owned by Falk brothers. On his return to England H.E.Falk left his brothers to set up his own Meadow Bank rock salt mine in Winsford on the River Weaver and by 1858 he had become one of the largest exporters of salt in the district. In part this was due to his initiative in opening up new markets overseas. As early as 1846 he had sent a cargo of salt to India.
