Till Time's Last Sand

by David Kynaston

  10 J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Bank and Its Treasure’, Economica, May 1940, pp 162–3; Sheila Lambert (ed), House of Commons Papers: George III, Vol 105, Third Report from the Committee of Secrecy appointed to examine and state the total amount of outstanding demands on the Bank of England …, pp 26–7; Clapham, vol 1, pp 171, 173.

  11 J. H. Clapham, ‘The Private Business of the Bank of England, 1744–1800’, Economic History Review, Oct 1941, pp 80–2; Lovell, p 12; Philip Ziegler, The Sixth Great Power (1988), p 51; Stanley D. Chapman, Raphael Bicentenary, 1787–1987 (1987), pp 7–8.

  12 Clapham, ‘Private Business’, pp 83–7; Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1976 OUP edn), pp 318–20.

  13 W. Marston Acres, ‘Directors of the Bank of England’, in Notes and Queries, 27 July 1940 to 24 August 1940, plus 3 Feb 1951; ADM30/11; OL, Dec 2005, p 144 (Kenneth J. Cozens and Suzanne J. Davis), March 1935, pp 13–14 (Acres); ADM30/12; John Thornton (ed), The Book of Yearly Recollections of Samuel Thornton, Esq. (Ewell, 1891), p 9; Abramson, p 95.

  14 Abramson, p 95; Acres, ‘Directors’.

  15 Sir Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1957 edn), pp 341–2; Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons, 1754–1790 (1964), vol II, pp 408–9.

  16 John H. Appleby, ‘James Theobald, F.R.S. (1688–1759), Merchant and Natural Historian’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, July 1996, pp 179–89; Gentleman’s Magazine, Jan 1787, p 94; OL, March [?] 1947, pp 4–9, Dec 1947, pp 234–5 (Reginald Saw); Ruth Guilding, Owning the Past (New Haven, 2014), pp 165–6, 335; OL, Dec 1935, pp 241–4 (Acres).

  17 Clapham, vol 1, pp 100–1; The Parliamentary History of England, Vol XXII (1814), Commons debate 13 June 1781, cols 523–4; Acres, vol 1, pp 186–7.

  18 London Chronicle, 30 June 1772; Acres, vol 1, p 200; Clapham, vol 1, pp 245–6; Roger Fulford, Glyn’s, 1753–1953 (1953), p 27; Clapham, vol 1, p 247; Henry Hamilton, ‘The Failure of the Ayr Bank, 1772’, Economic History Review, April 1956, pp 412–15. See also: Paul Kosmetatos, ‘The winding-up of the Ayr Bank, 1772–1827’, Financial History Review, Aug 2014.

  19 Clapham, vol 1, p 175; Acres, vol 1, pp 204–7; Clapham, vol 1, p 176; Times Literary Supplement, 29 May 2015 (T. H. Breen); Acres, vol 1, p 202; Clapham, vol 1, pp 251–2; Acres, vol 1, p 208; Larry Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism (Cambridge, 1990), p 211.

  20 Garland Garvey Smith (ed), Thomas Holcroft’s A Plain and Succinct Narrative of the Gordon Riots, London, 1780 (Atlanta, Georgia, 1944), pp 27–8; Abramson, pp 83–4; Jerry White, London in the Eighteenth Century (2012), pp 540–1; G8/1, 20 June 1780; Bank of England (John Keyworth), ‘As Safe as the Bank of England’ (1993); Acres, vol 1, p 210.

  21 Clapham, vol 1, pp 177–8; Parliamentary History Vol XXII, cols 517, 519, 522–3, 528–9; Clapham, vol 1, p 182.

  22 Feavearyear, p 176; Clapham, vol 1, p 255; J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Duties of the Banker’, Economica, Feb 1941, p 45; Clapham, vol 1, p 256; Feavearyear, pp 176–7.

  23 Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? (Oxford, 2006), p 114; Clapham, vol 1, pp 186–7; Lawrence Taylor and R. G. Thorne, ‘Thornton, Samuel’, in R. G. Thorne (ed), The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1790–1820 (1986), p 376; Clapham, vol 1, pp 188–91.

  24 Hoppit, ‘Financial Crises’, pp 54–5; Clapham, vol 1, pp 258–9; White, London, p 548.

  CHAPTER 3: A STEADY AND UNREMITTING ATTENTION

  1 ADM30/17.

  2 John Francis, History of the Bank of England (1848), vol 1, pp 168–9; Acres, vol 1, p 169; John Keyworth, ‘William and the Bank of England’ (1989, supplement to official programme book marking tercentenary of William and Mary’s Coronation); Abramson, pp 50–3.

  3 Acres, vol 1, pp 188–9; Abramson, pp 61–79.

  4 OL, Sept 2004, pp 92–3 (Graham Kentfield), Summer 1982, pp 76–8 (John Deacon); Abramson, pp 88–90, 92; A Gentleman of the Bank, &c., The Bank of England’s Vade Mecum; or Sure Guide (1782), pp 3, 11, 22–3; Acres, vol 1, pp 216–17.

  5 M5/471, 30 Sept 1788; M5/748, 15 Oct 1788; OL, March 2004, p 25 (John Keyworth), Spring 1982, p 18 (Kenneth Ireland); Abramson, pp 96–9.

  6 Abramson, p 99; M5/748, 11 Dec 1788; Giles Waterfield, ‘Soane’s Stock Rises Again’, Country Life, 15 June 1989, p 162; Abramson, pp 102–6.

  7 Acres, vol 1, pp 228–32; OL, Dec 1935, p 244 (Acres); Acres, vol 1, pp 226, 234–5; OL, Dec 1932, pp 232–6 (Acres), Sept 1933, pp 179–81 (Acres).

  8 Acres, vol 1, pp 254–7; ODNB, Anita McConnell, ‘Abraham Newland’.

  9 M5/451.

  10 Acres, vol 1, p 234.

  11 The sources for these pararaphs on the 1783–4 Committee of Inspection are: M5/212–13; M5/471; Acres, vol 1, pp 238–43; Anne Murphy, ‘Georgian Banking Blunders’, BBC History Magazine, Jan 2013, pp 42–3, ‘Clock-watching: work and working-time at the late-eighteenth-century Bank of England’, Past and Present, 2017

  12 Acres, vol 1, pp 243–50.

  13 Acres, vol 1, pp 251–2; OL, June 1958, pp 74–5 (J. A. Giuseppi), June 1996, p 51 (John Keyworth).

  CHAPTER 4: AN ELDERLY LADY IN THE CITY

  1 A. Allardyce, An Address to the Proprietors of the Bank of England (1797), pp 8, 10, 30; John Thornton (ed), The Book of Yearly Recollections of Samuel Thornton, Esq. (Ewell, 1891), p 82; Frank Whitson Fetter, Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy, 1797–1875 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965), pp 13–15; Clapham, vol 1, pp 263–5; Stanley D. Chapman, Raphael Bicentenary 1787–1987 (1987), p 8; ADM30/6, Daniel Giles file, 4 May 1793; OL, March 2003, p 11 (John Keyworth).

  2 S. R. Cope, Walter Boyd (Gloucester, 1983), p 63; ADM30/6, Giles file, 30 July 1795; John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition (1983), p 525; Clapham, vol 1, pp 195, 267; Feavearyear, pp 179–80; M5/472, 2 Dec 1795, 31 Dec 1795.

  3 Clapham, vol 1, pp 265–6, 269–70; Walter Boyd, A Letter to the Right Honourable William Pitt (1801), Appendix B; Reports from the Committees of Secrecy (1797) on the Outstanding Demands of the Bank of England (1826), p 98; Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre (eds), The Diary of Joseph Farington, Volume II (1978), p 629; Jagjit S. Chadha and Elisa Newby, ‘“Midas, transmuting all, into paper”’ (School of Economics, University of Kent, Discussion Paper, Sept 2013), p 5; Farington, Volume III (1979), p 668; Acres, vol 1, pp 270–1; Ehrman, p 639.

  4 Yearly Recollections, pp 93–4; Feavearyear, pp 181–2; Clapham, vol 1, p 266; Reports from the Committees of Secrecy, pp 103–4; Hiroki Shin, ‘Paper Money, the Nation, and the Suspension of Cash Payments in 1797’, Historical Journal, June 2015, p 423; Feavearyear, p 182.

  5 Feavearyear, p 182; M5/472, 26 Feb 1797; Acres, vol 1, opp p 276; Shin, ‘Paper Money’, pp 432–4; Farington, Volume III, p 798; Feavearyear, pp 184–5; Hiroki Shin, ‘The Culture of Paper Money in Britain: The Bank of England Note during the Bank Restriction Period, 1797–1821’ (University of Cambridge PhD, 2008), p 71.

  6 Reports from the Committees of Secrecy, pp 12, 14, 17, 37, 22–3, 33, 48, 73.

  7 The Parliamentary History of England, Vol XXXIII (1818), cols 351, 358, 372–3, 394.

  8 Martin Rowson, ‘Poisoned pen’, Guardian, 21 March 2015; OL, June 1989, front cover, summer 1983, p 83 (John Keyworth); Shin, ‘Culture’, p 178; OL, March 1927, pp 5–7 (Acres).

  9 M5/472, 22 Dec 1803; Yearly Recollections, p 151; Clapham, vol 2, p 44.

  10 E. L. Hargreaves, The National Debt (1930), p 291; Feavearyear, p 193; Roger Knight, Britain against Napoleon (2013), pp 390, 392; Ian P. H. Duffy, ‘The Discount Policy of the Bank of England during the Suspension of Cash Payments, 1797–1821’, Economic History Review, Feb 1982, pp 76–7; Elisa Newby, ‘Sustainable Monetary Policy: Lessons and Evidence from the Bank Suspension Period, 1797–1821’ (University of St Andrews PhD, 2008), p 5; Kwasi Kwarteng, War and Gold (2014), p 50.

  11 Randall McGowen, ‘The Bank of England and the Policing of Forgery, 1797–1821’, Past and Present, Feb 2005, pp 87–9; Deirdr
e Palk, Gender, Crime and Judicial Discretion, 1780–1830 (Woodbridge, 2006), pp 148–51.

  12 Virginia Hewitt, ‘Beware of Imitations’, Numismatic Chronicle, 1998, p 200; OL, March 1997, p 6 (John Keyworth); Hewitt and Keyworth, pp 53, 67.

  13 Feavearyear, pp 191–2; Boyd, Letter, pp 7, 57, 65–6; J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Duties of a Banker – II’, Economica, May 1944, pp 77, 83; Yearly Recollections, p 112; Henry Thornton, An Enquiry into the Nature of Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1939 edn), pp 109–10; Horsefield, ‘Duties’, pp 78–81.

  14 Fetter, Development, pp 39–40; Piero Sraffa (ed), The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Volume III (Cambridge, 1951), pp 131–3; R. S. Sayers, ‘Ricardo’s Views on Monetary Questions’, in T. S. Ashton and R. S. Sayers (eds), Papers in English Monetary History (1953), p 82; F. W. Fetter, ‘The Bullion Report Re-examined’, in Ashton and Sayers, Papers, p 67.

  15 Report, together with Minutes of Evidence, and Accounts, from the Select Committee on the High Price of Gold Bullion (House of Commons, 8 June 1810), pp 79, 89, 128, 89–90, 95–6; Ricardo, p 369; Report, pp 132–3, 143, 146–7, 20–4; Fetter, Development, p 61.

  16 Yearly Recollections, p 150; T. C. Hansard (ed), Parliamentary Debates, vol XIX (1812), cols 1061, 1163, 1161; Fetter, Development, pp 53–4; Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? (Oxford, 2006), p 258; Clapham, vol 2, p 28; Hilton, p 258; Ricardo, vol III, p 133.

  17 Clapham, vol 2, pp 31, 33; David Kynaston, The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lavenham, 1980), pp 20–1; G6/184, 16 May 1815; Clapham, vol 1, pp 37, 39.

  18 Abramson, chaps 4 and 5; Abramson, pp 108–10; Farington, Volume II, p 638; Abramson, pp 162, 133, 96; Leigh’s New Picture of London (1818), p 294.

  19 Farington, Volume IV (1979), pp 1274, 1277; Acres, vol 1, pp 294–8.

  20 ADM30/1730/17; Anne L. Murphy, ‘“Writes a fair hand and appears to be well qualified”: the recruitment of Bank of England clerks, 1800–1815’, Financial History Review, April 2015, pp 19–44; G6/184, 3 May 1815.

  21 Acres, vol 2, pp 364–8; OL, June 1924, pp 230–4 (B. T. K. Smith), March 1929, pp 12–17, June 1929, pp 75–81.

  CHAPTER 5: ALL THE OBLOQUY

  1 Piero Sraffa (ed), The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo (Cambridge, 1952), vol V, pp 463–4, vol VI, pp 338, 268; T. C. Hansard (ed), Parliamentary Debates, vol XXXII (1816), 13 Feb 1816, cols 461, 463, 477–8, 502, 504, 506, vol XXXV (1817), 19 Feb 1817, col 449.

  2 John Thornton (ed), The Book of Yearly Recollections of Samuel Thornton, Esq. (Ewell, 1891), p 167; Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, vol XXXIV (1816), 1–3 May 1816, cols 160–3, 251, vol XXXV, 19 Feb 1817, col 464; Feavearyear, p 216; Giuseppi, p 80; Clapham, vol 2, pp 64–5; Acres, vol 1, pp 315–16; Huskisson Papers (British Library), Add Ms, 38,741, fos 251–2.

  3 Randall McGowen, ‘The Bank of England and the Policing of Forgery, 1797–1821’, Past and Present, Feb 2005, p 87; OL, March 1959, p 44 (C. A. West); Abramson, p 123; Virginia Hewitt, ‘Beware of Imitations’, Numismatic Chronicle, 1998, p 211; Frank Whitson Fetter, Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy, 1797–1875 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965), p 73; Kathryn Cave (ed), The Diary of Joseph Farington, Volume XV (1984), p 5318.

  4 Fetter, Development, p 85; Minutes of Evidence taken before the Secret Committee on the Expediency of The Bank resuming Cash Payments (House of Commons, 6 May 1819), pp 26, 51–2, 79; Boyd Hilton, Corn, Cash, Commerce (Oxford, 1977), p 46; Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, vol XL (1819), col 604; Boyd Hilton, A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? (Oxford, 2006), p 325; Hilton, Corn, p 46; Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, vol XL, cols 683, 689, 741, 744, 746, 800. For a close reading of the attitudes towards bullionism of individual Bank directors, see: J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Bankers and the Bullionists in 1819’, Journal of Political Economy, Oct 1949, pp 442–8.

  5 Minutes of Evidence taken before the Secret Committee, p 157; Hilton, Corn, pp 56–7; Huskisson, fos 251–2; Abramson, p 123; Hilton, Corn, pp 87–8; Clapham, vol 2, p 75; Hilton, Corn, p 89.

  6 D. P. O’Brien and John Creedy, Darwin’s Clever Neighbour (Cheltenham, 2010), pp 244–6; Stephen Fay, ‘Runs in the Bank’, MCC Magazine, Autumn/Winter 2014, p 22; Darwin’s, pp 253–4; OL, March 1932, pp 14–15 (Acres); ODNB, A. C. Howe, ‘Palmer, (John) Horsley’; Darwin’s, p 352; UCL/Legacies of British Slave-ownership/database.

  7 Acres, vol 2, pp 399–400; Anthony Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption” to “New Probity”’, Financial History Review, April 1994, pp 23–41; Sir John Soane’s Museum, S.M. Private Correspondence, II.T.7.1; Abramson, pp 177–88; S.M. Private Correspondence, I.B.2.14; OL, March 2004, p 25.

  8 OL, Sept 1929, p 167; Feavearyear, p 233; Clapham, vol 2, pp 81–9, 76; Acres, vol 2, p 419–20; OL, Dec 1934, pp 255–61 (Acres).

  9 Yearly Recollections, p 196; Hilton, Corn, pp 202–15; Feavearyear, p 235; K. F. Dixon, ‘The Development of the London Money Market, 1780–1830’ (University of London PhD, 1962), pp 178–9.

  10 Feavearyear, p 236; E. M. Forster, Marianne Thornton, 1797–1887 (1956), pp 106–14; Clapham, vol 2, p 99; Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street (1873), pp 51–2; John A. James, ‘Panics, payments disruptions and the Bank of England before 1826’, Financial History Review, Dec 2012, pp 301–2; Liverpool Papers (British Library), Add Ms, 38,371, fo 77; Francis Bamford and the Duke of Wellington (eds), The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot (1950), vol 1, pp 426–7; Kynaston, vol 1, p 70; Arbuthnot, p 428; Clapham, vol 2, pp 100–2; OL, Sept 1929, p 168.

  11 Morgan, pp 88–9; Darwin’s, pp 298–9.

  12 Morgan, p 100; Hilton, Corn, pp 237–8; J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Opinions of Horsley Palmer’, Economica, May 1949, pp 150–2; Feavearyear, pp 245–50; Hilton, Corn, pp 239–41; Darwin’s, pp 350–1; Brian Jenkins, Henry Goulburn, 1784–1856 (Liverpool, 1996), pp 207–8; M5/201, 23 April 1830; Jenkins, pp 213–14.

  13 Acres, vol 2, p 456; OL, March 1984, pp 26–9 (David J. Moss); Michael Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973), p 298; Times, 15–16 May 1832; G8/25, 16 May 1832; Fetter, Development, p 135; Brock, p 306.

  14 Report from the Committee of Secrecy on the Bank of England Charter; with the Minutes of Evidence (1832), qq 72, 178–82, 2341, 5127, 5130, 3689, 4946, 4773, 3395, 3402, 3415, 2878–9; Clapham, vol 2, p 129; Feavearyear, p 252; Report from the Committee of Secrecy, qq 2710–11; Feavearyear, p 251; Fetter, Development, pp 156–7.

  15 Acres, vol 2, p 429; OL, June 1926, pp 258–60 (Acres); Acres, vol 2, pp 434, 428; OL, June 1935, pp 109–12 (Acres).

  16 Dieter Ziegler, ‘Central Banking in the English Provinces in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century’, Business History, Oct 1989, p 38; David J. Moss, ‘Central banking and the provincial system’, Financial History Review, April 1995, p 7; Dieter Ziegler, Central Bank, Peripheral Industry (Leicester, 1990), pp 9–31.

  17 Ziegler, Central Bank, pp 5–6; Darwin’s, p 299; Clapham, vol 2, pp 138–9; Moss, ‘Central Banking’, p 20; Ziegler, Central Bank, p 9. In general on the branch banks in this period, see also: David J. Moss, ‘The Bank of England and the country banks’, Economic History Review, Nov 1981, ‘The Bank of England and the establishment of a branch system, 1826–1829’, Canadian Journal of History, 1992; R. O. Roberts, ‘Bank of England Branch Discounting, 1826–59’, Economica, Aug 1958; Roy Clifford, The Birmingham Branch of the Bank of England, 1826–34 (c 1998); M. Collins, ‘The Bank of England at Liverpool, 1827–1844’, Business History, 1972; Jean Welsh, ‘A History of Banking and the Bank of England in Newcastle and the North East of England, 1815–1850’ (undated dissertation at Bank of England Information Centre).

  18 Edward Nevin and E. W. Davis, The London Clearing Banks (1970), p 61; T. E. Gregory, The Westminster Bank (1936), vol 1, pp 151, 164; J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Bank of England as Mentor’, Economic History Review, Aug 1949, p 84.

  19 ADM30/10, James Pattison file; Jessica M. Lepler, The Many Panics of 1937 (Cambridge, 2013), p 53; The Baring Archive, DEP 74 vol 3, Diaries of Joshua Bates, 17 September 1836; G8/29, 26 Oct 1836; Le
pler, p 60; G6/286, items 52–4, 81; Lepler, chap 4.

  20 Barclays Archives, 25/265 (286, 278, 286); G4/59, 21 March 1837; D. P. O’Brien (ed), The Correspondence of Lord Overstone, Volume 1 (Cambridge, 1971), p 221; Lepler, pp 167–72.

  21 Muriel Emmie Hidy, George Peabody (New York, 1978), p 84; Morrison Cryder records (LMA), Ms 11,720, folder one, 21 May 1837; Barclays, 25/265 (289, 290); G4/60, 30 May 1937; Caroline Dakers, A Genius for Money (2011), p 133; Barclays, 25/265 (293); G4/60, 1 June 1837; Barclays, 25/265 (293); Times, 27 June 1837.

  22 OL, Dec 1923, pp 136–7; Acres, vol 2, pp 481–3; Abramson, p 79; G8/29, 26 Oct 1836; Acres, vol 2, p 479.

  23 Clapham, vol 2, p 162; The Baring Archive, DEP 74 vol 3, Diaries of Joshua Bates, 20 July 1839; Clapham, vol 2, pp 168–9; Marc Flandreau, ‘Central bank cooperation in historical perspective’, Economic History Review, Nov 1997, p 742; diary of Charles Churchill senior (LMA), Ms 5,762, vol 17; Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker (1998), pp 398–9; Stanley Chapman, The Rise of Merchant Banking (1984), p 165; Flandreau, p 743.

  24 Overstone, vol 1, pp 250–74.

  25 J. Horsley Palmer, The Causes and Consequences of the Pressure upon the Money-Market (1837), pp 10, 33, 42; Samuel James Loyd, Reflections suggested by a Perusal of Mr J. Horsley Palmer’s Pamphlet (1837), pp 13, 10, 17; Overstone, vol 1, p 93; Daniel Hardcastle, jnr, Banks and Bankers (1842), p 164; Michael Collins, ‘The Langton Papers’, Economica, Feb 1972, p 59; P. L. Cottrell, ‘The Bank of England in transition, 1836–1860’, in Franz Bosbach and Hans Pohl (eds), Das Kreditwesen in der Neuzeit (Munich, 1997), p 105; Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, vol LXXIV (1844), 6 May 1844, col 750. See also: J. K. Horsefield, ‘The Origins of the Bank Charter Act, 1844’, in T. S. Ashton and R. S. Sayers (eds), Papers in English Monetary History (1953), pp 109–25.

  26 Helpful summaries of the Bank Charter Act include: Clapham, vol 2, pp 183–4; Fetter, p 185; Feavearyear, pp 272–4; Morgan, pp 115–16.