scholarly journals Performing Public Credit at the Eighteenth-Century Bank of England

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne L. Murphy

AbstractMuch is known about the negotiation of personal credit relationships during the eighteenth century. It has been noted how direct contact and observation allowed individuals to assess the creditworthiness of those with whom they had financial connections and to whom they might lend money. Much less is known about one of the most important credit relationships of the long eighteenth century: that between the state and its creditors. This article shows that investors could experience the performance of public credit at the Bank of England. By 1760 the Bank was the manager of nearly three-quarters of the state's debt and housed the main secondary market in that debt. Thus, it provided a place for public creditors, both current and potential, to attend and scrutinize the performance of the state's promises. The article demonstrates how the Bank acted to embody public credit through its architecture, internal structures, and imagery and through the very visible actions of its clerks and the technologies that they used to record ownership and transfer of the national debt. The Bank of England, by those means, allowed creditors to interrogate the financial stability and reputation of the state in the same ways that they could interrogate the integrity of a private debtor.

Author(s):  
Morton Guy ◽  
Marsh Andrew

This chapter talks about the Bank of England as the UK's central bank, which was established in 1694 by a Charter granted by King William III and Queen Mary II under the authority of an Act of Parliament. It explains the principal object of the Act in creating the Bank as a vehicle for raising money for the government. It also discusses how the Bank was closely associated with the raising and management of the national debt since its inception, which is a function that the Bank retained until the creation of the UK Debt Management Office (DMO) in 1998. This chapter highlights how the Bank raised money by issuing of banknotes, which became widely used as a convenient means of making large—value payments. It points out that the Bank of England notes were not formally legal tender until 1833.


2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 685-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARA CAPUTO

AbstractDuring the ‘long eighteenth century’, several thousands of sailors born outside British territories served in the Royal Navy. This phenomenon, and the peculiarities of their employment compared to that of British seamen, remain largely unstudied. This paper aims to show that, as far as disabilities or privileges were concerned, official legislation only played a very small part in making alien seamen's experiences in the navy distinct from those of their British colleagues. More broadly, this article argues that, whilst transnationalism can be overemphasized, there are specific contexts and groups of people for which the power of the state falters when it comes to obstructing movement, and indeed it is forced, for its very survival, to act strategically against the barrier to circulation that frontiers normally constitute. In similar circumstances, the origins of the individuals concerned, intended as official labels that states normally use to classify them, control them, and claim or disclaim ownership over them, can become all but meaningless. Thus, naval sailors, as useful state servants, can be an excellent case-study to understand the category of legal ‘foreignness’ as it developed in modern nation-states, and the tensions inherent to it.


Author(s):  
Iván Valdez-Bubnov

El presente estudio tiene el propósito de analizar la política industrial desarrollada por la monarquía hispánica para la producción de buques de guerra durante un largo siglo XVIII comprendido entre 1670 y 1834. Su hipótesis fundamental es que una de las claves para completar nuestro conocimiento sobre la naturaleza de los sistemas administrativos de la construcción naval es la relación del Estado y la iniciativa empresarial con la mano de obra especializada, encuadrada en el marco normativo de la Matrícula de Mar. Esta línea interpretativa intersecta con el debate historiográfico dedicado a la alternativa asiento/administración directa como clave para comprender la importancia de la construcción naval en el proceso de construcción del Estado moderno. La conexión se encuentra en que la tendencia legislativa de la corona consistió, primero, en militarizar la mano de obra especializada por medio de la inclusión en la matrícula y, posteriormente, en concentrar los contratos de construcción naval exclusivamente en individuos matriculados. Esto representa una diferencia estructural entre el contratista de principios del siglo XVIII, encargado de una multiplicidad de procesos productivos, y aquél de finales de la centuria, responsable únicamente de la movilización y administración de una mano de obra previamente militarizada. De manera paralela, este estudio busca integrar la dimensión asiática de la construcción naval española, no de manera tangencial, sino como un componente fundamental y prioritario del reformismo borbónico en las industrias estratégicas.AbstractThe purpose of the present article is to outline the industrial policies developed by the Spanish Monarchy for the production of warships during the long Eighteenth century (1670-1834), in Spain, America and the Philippines. Its main hypothesis is that an important element to complete our understanding of the administrative systems of Spanish naval shipbuilding is the relationship between the State, the entrepreneurs dedicated to this aspect of the armaments industry, and the specialised workforce recruited through the registry of maritime professions known as Matrícula de Mar. This line of argumentation intersects with the historiographical debate dedicated to understand the State-building process of imperial Spain through the two main administrative methods employed in its armaments industries (private contracting and direct state administration). The Matrícula de Mar allowed the Spanish crown to create new militarised corporations of shipbuilding workers and, from the last third of the Eighteenth century it followed a consistent policy of concentrating the shipbuilding contracts on small-scale entrepreneurs belonging to these corporations. This had important implications for the meaning of the alternative between private contracting and direct state administration. The article also details the peculiarities of shipbuilding administration in Spanish America and Asia, through the expansion of the Matrícula de Mar.


1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Bullion

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the growth of the national debt, the burden of the taxes necessary to support it, and the effect of this system of public finance on the politics, economy, and society of Britain, deeply concerned politicians in opposition. Their frequent expressions of concern were sufficiently persuasive to induce similar apprehensions on occasion in politicians at court. In 1753, when the national debt was a little over £74,000,000, earl Waldegrave, a personal favorite of George II, felt compelled to tell the House of Lords about a “consideration of very great importance, … the state of our national debt [and] the heavy taxes which are the consequences of this debt.” The situation required, he went on, “prudent measures of government, with that strict national economy which must be our only remedy.” Waldegrave did not go so far as to believe the nation was on the verge of collapse. As he pointed out, “a country and a government like ours has so many and so great resources, that we may bear a great deal and still be in a flourishing condition.” “Yet as long as this evil does subsist,” he warned the House, “we can never expect fully to exert our proper strength.” He concluded, “Till this burden is removed it will remain a check to our trade, will be still heavier on the landed interest, must lessen our credit and influence abroad, and will be a cause of discontent if not of disaffection at home.”


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Randall McGowen

Britain and France were at war with each other for over half of the long eighteenth century. This period of sustained conflict produced immense changes, in both countries, in the character of the state and the course of economic development. Yet one of the most obvious ways in which contemporaries would have encountered the war was in the presence of large numbers of prisoners of war held by their country. Early in the century there were thousands of such captives, and by its end they numbered in the tens of thousands. Renaud Morieux takes this neglected topic for the focus of his multifaceted study. These prisoners created challenges that were legal and diplomatic, as well as administrative and financial. The citizens of each country found themselves having to learn to live with captives of a nation with which they were at war. In a work that is both theoretically informed and exhaustively researched, Morieux offers fresh insight into the consequences of war for European society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-41
Author(s):  
EDWARD JONES CORREDERA

This article explores David Hume’s views on public credit, the state, and geopolitics as outlined in his Political Discourses. By drawing attention to Hume’s analysis of the speed of political economic dynamics, the article suggests the philosopher feared that public credit, a crucial source of eighteenth-century European economic growth, fundamentally revolutionized the pace of social relations, the mechanics of the state, and European geopolitics at large. Hume’s study of public credit highlighted its role in reshaping eighteenth-century visions of time, and the philosopher’s disappointment with his own solution, in turn, reinforces the need to consider the multifaceted effects of public credit in the modern world.


Few scholars can claim to have shaped the historical study of the long eighteenth century more profoundly than Professor H. T. Dickinson, who, until his retirement in 2006, held the Sir Richard Lodge Chair of British History at the University of Edinburgh. This volume, based on contributions from Dickinson's students, friends and colleagues from around the world, offers a range of perspectives on eighteenth-century Britain and provides a tribute to a remarkable scholarly career. Dickinson's work and career provides the ideal lens through which to take a detailed snapshot of current research in a number of areas. The book includes contributions from scholars working in intellectual history, political and parliamentary history, ecclesiastical and naval history; discussions of major themes such as Jacobitism, the French Revolution, popular radicalism and conservatism; and essays on prominent individuals in English and Scottish history, including Edmund Burke, Thomas Muir, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence. The result is a uniquely rich and detailed collection with an impressive breadth of coverage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.


Author(s):  
Olha Drachevska

The article is devoted to the analysis of scientific approaches to the interpretation of the concepts of "state regulation", "state regulation of banking", "banking regulation" and the measures on which the state regulation of banking is based. An analysis of the scientific literature in various fields allows us to conclude that scholars ambiguously interpret the term "state regulation of banking." Most often, state regulation of banking is seen as a system of measures by which the state through authorized bodies regulates the activities of banks. The domestic legislator considers the concept of "banking regulation" as one of the functions of the National Bank of Ukraine, which is to create a system of norms governing the activities of banks, determine the general principles of banking, banking supervision, liability for violations of banking legislation. The main purpose of banking regulation is security and financial stability of the banking system, protection of the interests of depositors and creditors. The importance of state regulation of banking as an integral part of public policy is emphasized. Effective state regulation of banking activities should ensure stable and uninterrupted operation of the banking system, guarantee the provision of quality services by banks to depositors and borrowers and protect their interests. Preventive and protective measures on which the state regulation of banking activity in Ukraine is based are considered. Preventive measures should be implemented through the approval of mandatory regulations. The application of protective measures should provide protection against the already threatening situation for the bank. Attention is also paid to the forms in which state regulation of banks by the National Bank is carried out. Such forms are administrative regulation and indicative regulation.


Author(s):  
Oleksandra Maslii ◽  
Andrii Maksymenko ◽  
Svitlana Onyshchenko

Place of monitoring and control of risks of financial stability of the state in the system of ensuring financial security of the state was substantiated. Methods of identifying threats to Ukraine's financial security through the current and strategic analysis of financial system development indicators were considered. Tendencies of economic development of Ukraine in the context of revealing sources of threats to financial stability of the state were analyzed. Dynamic analysis of the actual values of the financial security indicators of Ukraine as a whole and its separate components had been carried out. Threats to Ukraine's financial security were identified based on comparative and trend analysis. Reasons for the critical state of debt, banking and monetary security in the financial structure and the preconditions for the emergence of systemic threats had been investigated. Systematization of risks and threats to Ukraine's financial security by its components had been carried out. Influence of systemic threats in the financial sphere on the economic security of the state was generalized. International experience of monitoring financial stability of the state was analyzed. Additional risks to the national financial system are associated with the globalization and digitization of the state financial system that are not taken into account by valid methodological recommendations for calculating the level of economic security of Ukraine were highlighted.


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