A new book on the Bank of England, that shows how the private institution became “a great engine of the state”, has been selected in a list of ‘The books to read in 2023’ by the Financial Times.
A new book on the Bank of England, that shows how the private institution became “a great engine of the state”, has been selected in a list of ‘The books to read in 2023’ by the Financial Times.
Virtuous Bankers is written by one of the leading scholars of the City of London in the 18th century. Anne Murphy, Professor of History and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the СƵ, describes a day in the life of the eighteenth-century Bank of England from the opening of the gates at dawn to locking up at night.
The book highlights how the Bank of England was a significant institution that operated for the benefit of its shareholders and yet came to be considered “a great engine of state”, as described by the Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith. Professor Murphy explores how the Bank became the guardian of the public credit upon which Britain’s economic and geopolitical power was based.
Virtuous Bankers is compelling and lively, and will please both academic and general readers
Using research of detailed minute books of a Committee of Inspection that examined the Bank’s workings in 1783–84, Professor Murphy discusses the bank as a domestic environment, a working environment, and a space to be protected against theft, fire, and revolt.
Professor Murphy offers new insights into the skills of the Bank’s clerks and the ways in which their work was organised, and she positions the Bank as part of the physical and cultural landscape of the City: an aggressive property developer, a vulnerable institution seeking to secure its buildings, and an enterprise necessarily accessible to the public. She considers the aesthetics of its headquarters, one of London’s finest buildings and the messages of creditworthiness embedded in that architecture.
Publishers of the book, Princeton University Press praise the book as a “uniquely intimate account, which shows how the eighteenth-century Bank was able to deliver a set of services that were essential to the state and commanded the confidence of the public.”
Perry Gauci, Literary Review said: “Virtuous Bankers is compelling and lively, and will please both academic and general readers.”
Before joining academia, Professor Anne Murphy worked for 12 years in the City of London trading interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives. She is the author of The Origins of the English Financial Markets.