Founding of the Bank of England
- Date
- 27 July 1694
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- England
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
The Bank of England was established in 1694 to raise money for King William III's government, which was struggling to finance the Nine Years' War against Louis XIV's France.
Acting on a scheme long advocated by the Scottish merchant William Paterson and championed in Parliament by Charles Montagu, later Earl of Halifax, the Tonnage Act (Bank of England Act 1694) received royal assent on 25 April 1694, authorising the loan of GBP 1.2 million to the Crown at 8 percent interest plus an annual management fee. Subscribers, who supplied the full sum within twelve days, were incorporated by royal charter on 27 July 1694 as 'The Governor and Company of the Bank of England,' with Sir John Houblon as the first Governor, and the Bank opened for business on 1 August in temporary quarters at Mercers' Hall. In return the Bank gained the right to issue banknotes, deal in bills of exchange, and take deposits, binding public credit to a permanent funded national debt. As the institution at the heart of England's Financial Revolution, it became the prototype for the modern central bank and underpinned Britain's rise as a great fiscal and imperial power.
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Empires active in 27 July 1694
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations9 March 1776
- Founding of the English and Dutch East India Companies1600–1602
- Britain wins the Asiento at the Treaty of Utrecht1713
- Royal African Company chartered, expanding England's slave trade1672
- Founding of the Bank of Amsterdam (Wisselbank)31 January 1609
- Joint-stock companies and the world's first stock exchange1600–1611 (VOC chartered 20 March 1602; exchange opened 1611)
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
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