Money and Power: The Bank of England and London in the 18th Century Anne L. Murphy Email: [email protected] Twitter: @18thc_finance The Mob destroying & Setting Fire to the Kings Bench Prison & House of Correction in St Georges Fields Government long-term borrowing, 1693-1698
Date of royal assent Amount raised £ Interest % Loan details to Loan Act
Jan 1693 108,100 10 until midsummer Tontine 1700, then 7
Jan 1693 773,394 14 Single life annuities
Feb 1694 118,506 14 Single life annuities
Mar 1694 1,000,000 14 Million Adventure lottery
Apr 1694 1,200,000 8 Bank of England.
Apr 1694 300,000 10,12 and 14 Annuities for one, two and three lives.
Apr 1697 1,400,000 6.3 Malt lottery. July 1698 2,000,000 8 New East India Company.
6,900,000
Source: P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: a study in the development of public credit, 1688-1756 (London, 1967), pp. 47-49. P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: a study in the development of public credit, 1688-1756 (London, 1967), pp. 47-49. Levels of public debt, 1691-1815 (in millions of £s)
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1691 1695 1699 1703 1707 1711 1715 1719 1723 1727 1731 1735 1739 1743 1747 1751 1755 1759 1763 1767 1771 1775 1779 1783 1787 1791 1795 1799 1803 1807 1811 1815
Source: Mitchell, B.R., with Phyllis Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962). A view of the Bank of England (1816) Sculpture of Britannia from entrance to the Bank’s Pay Hall, mid-eighteenth century Image from front of Bank of England General Ledger Thomas Rowlandson, The Great Hall of the Bank of England (1808) Concluding Report of the Bank’s Committee of Inspection, 1783
When we contemplate the immense importance of the Bank of England not only to the City of London, in points highly essential to the promotion & extension of its Commerce, but to the Nation at large, as the grand Palladium of Public Credit, we cannot but be thoroughly persuaded that an Object so great in itself & so interesting to all Ranks of the Community, must necessarily excite care & solicitude in every breast, for the wise administration of its Affairs, but principally and directly in theirs who are entrusted with the immediate management of them: We deem it therefore superfluous to say a single word to the Court with a view of inculcating a religious Veneration for the glorious fabrick, or of recommending a steady and unremitting attention to its sacred Preservation. James Gillray, Political Ravishment or The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in danger! (1797) James Gillray, A March to the Bank (1787) George Cruikshank, Bank Restriction Note (1819) Thomas Rowlandson, The Bank (1792)