Non-Bank Finance in Eighteenth-Century England

At the start of the eighteenth century, there were virtually no banks outside London. By the end, there were almost 400. Much scholarship on eighteenth-century finance has focused on the new and striking, such as the rise of banks, and, in particular, public institutions, often referred to as the ‘financial revolution’. Nonetheless, the 89% of people living outside London continued to borrow, lend, and move money using their own contacts and networks, in a similar way to their ancestors. This was ‘non-bank finance’. Credit was more important than cash. The system was socially-based and self-organising, and by no means backward or primitive. Rather, it was sophisticated and flexible, ran on endogenous networks, and enabled people to move money around the entire country. It remained largely intact until well into the nineteenth century. The eighteenth-century non-bank finance system has similarities with twenty-first century Decentralised Finance (DeFi). Both are systems with no central authority. One is a pre-bank system, and the other post-bank. This thesis examines the neglected non-bank finance system from various angles. Following an introduction and an outline of some important concepts, there is a description of how the main instruments for everyday transactions, promissory notes and bills of exchange, worked. This would have been intuitive to contemporaries, but has not been the subject of recent scholarship. The way in which the system functioned is then covered, including how large payments were made and why there was a shortage of specie. Netting and networks were the key concepts. Four primary source-based case studies then illustrate how this worked in practice. These are: the financial transactions of a small trader; the cash payments and receipts of an attorney; payments made and facilitated by a businessman with London connections; and the financial practices and networks of two merchants.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Senior, Richard

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Muldrew, James
• Raven, James

• Accounting
• Attorneys
• Banking
• Banks
• Barter
• Bill of exchange
• Bookkeeping
• Borrowing
• Cash
• Cash nexus
• Clearing
• Coins
• Coinage
• Complexity
• Country banks
• Credit
• Double entry
• Eighteenth century
• Endogenous
• Exchange
• Finance
• Financial
• Gold
• Institutions
• Lending
• Legal tender
• London
• Markets
• Merchants
• Money
• Netting
• Networks
• Non-bank
• Payment
• Probate
• Probate inventories
• Promissory notes
• Ready money
• Settlement
• Shortage of specie
• Single entry
• Specie

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/3d87be0f-b983-4813-aba1-fe43fb20fc08/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.122419

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/391210