Exchange Alley, London
Encyclopedia
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, bounded by Lombard Street
Lombard Street, London
Lombard Street is a street in the City of London.It runs from the corner of the Bank of England at its north-west end, where it meets a major junction including Poultry, King William Street, and Threadneedle Street, south-east to Gracechurch Street....
, Cornhill and Birchin Lane. It served as a convenient shortcut from the Royal Exchange to the Post Office. The shops included ship chandler
Ship chandler
A ship chandler is a retail dealer in special supplies or equipment for ships.For traditional sailing ships items that could be found in a chandler might include: rosin, turpentine, tar, pitch , linseed oil, whale oil, tallow, lard, varnish, twine, rope and cordage, hemp, oakum, tools A ship...
s, makers of instruments for navigation
History of navigation
In the pre-modern history of human migration and discovery of new lands by navigating the oceans, a few peoples have excelled as sea-faring explorers...
such as telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...
s, and goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
s from Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
.
The coffee houses of Exchange Alley, especially Jonathan's
Jonathan's Coffee-House
Jonathan's Coffee-House in Change Alley is famous as the original site of the London Stock Exchange. The Coffee-House was founded by Jonathan Miles, in Exchange Alley, around 1680....
and Garraway's, became an early venue for the lively trading of stocks
Stocks
Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by...
and commodities. These activities were the progenitor of the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
. Similarly, Edward Lloyd's
Edward Lloyd (coffeehouse owner)
Edward Lloyd ran the Lloyd's Coffee House in Lombard Street in the City of London which became a meeting place for merchants and shipowners. From the habit of their members to meet there, Lloyd's Coffee House spawned Lloyd's of London, Lloyd's Register, and Lloyd's List. There is no connection...
coffee house, at 16, Lombard Street but originally on Tower Street, was the forerunner of Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...
, Lloyd's Register
Lloyd's Register
The Lloyd's Register Group is a maritime classification society and independent risk management organisation providing risk assessment and mitigation services and management systems certification. Historically, as Lloyd's Register of Shipping, it was a specifically maritime organisation...
and Lloyd's List
Lloyd's List
Lloyd's List is one of the world's oldest continuously-running journals, having provided weekly shipping news in London as early as 1734. Now published daily, a recent issue was numbered 59,200...
.
History
Lombard Street and Change Alley had been the open-air meeting place of London's mercantile community before Sir Thomas GreshamThomas Gresham
Sir Thomas Gresham was an English merchant and financier who worked for King Edward VI of England and for Edward's half-sisters, Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.-Family and childhood:...
founded the Royal Exchange in 1565. In 1698, John Castaing began publishing the prices of stocks and commodities in Jonathan's Coffee House, providing the first evidence of systematic exchange of securities in London. Many stock jobbers, who had been expelled from the Royal Exchange for their rude manners, also migrated to Jonathan's and Garraway's.
Change Alley was the site of some noteworthy events in England's financial history, including the South Sea Bubble from 1711 to 1720 and the panic of 1745. "Change Alley in the South Sea Bubble", Edward Matthew Ward
Edward Matthew Ward
Edward Matthew Ward was an English Victorian narrative painter best known for his murals in the Palace of Westminster depicting episodes in British history from the English Civil War to the Glorious Revolution.-Early career:...
's painting now in the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
, skewers stock jobbers' opportunism and the foolishness of investors. Contemporary songs and sarcastic decks of cards are described in Charles Mackay's Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a history of popular folly by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in 1841. The book chronicles its subjects in three parts: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and "Philosophical Delusions"...
. Although lampooning the collapse of the South Sea Company has been a popular pastime, others have considered that "the basic outlines of the Anglo-American structure of finance were set by 1723 -– a complementary set of private commercial and merchant banks all enjoying continuous access to an active, liquid secondary market for financial assets, especially government debt. The South Sea Bubble proved to be the "big bang" for financial capitalism in England."
In 1748, a fire started at a peruke-maker
Wig
A wig is a head of hair made from horsehair, human hair, wool, feathers, yak hair, buffalo hair, or synthetic materials which is worn on the head for fashion or various other aesthetic and stylistic reasons, including cultural and religious observance. The word wig is short for periwig and first...
's in Exchange Alley, and from ninety to one hundred houses were burnt down in Exchange Alley, Cornhill and Birchin Lane. Many lives were lost and the fire destroyed the London Assurance Office, the "Swan", "Fleece", "Three Tuns" and "George and Vulture" taverns, and "Tom's" the "Rainbow" "Garraway's," "Jonathan's" and the "Jerusalem" coffee-houses.
The fire also destroyed a rare collection of butterflies assembled by the Aurelian Society
Aurelian (entomology)
Aurelian is an archaic word for lepidopterist, one who is interested in butterflies. The term is derived from aurelia, meaning chrysalis, and relates to the golden color it may attain just before the butterfly emerges; the Latin word for gold is aurum.The Society of Aurelians in London, England,...
.
In 1761 a club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed to trade stocks. The club built its own building in Sweeting's Alley in 1773, dubbed the "New Jonathan's", later renamed the Stock Exchange.
See also
- City of LondonCity of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
- London Stock ExchangeLondon Stock ExchangeThe London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
- Lombard Street, LondonLombard Street, LondonLombard Street is a street in the City of London.It runs from the corner of the Bank of England at its north-west end, where it meets a major junction including Poultry, King William Street, and Threadneedle Street, south-east to Gracechurch Street....
- Cornhill, London
- Joint Stock Company
- South Sea Bubble
Literature
- John Biddulph Martin, "The Grasshopper" in Lombard Street, New York, Scribner & Welford (1892).
- Dianne Dugaw, "High Change in 'Change Alley': Popular Ballads and Emergent Capitalism in the Eighteenth Century", Eighteenth-Century Life, Vol. 22, Number 2 (May, 1998), pp. 43–58.
- The Diary of Samuel Pepys, May 28, 1663.
- “The English Coffee Houses”, Waes Hael Poetry & Tobacco Club. On Line.