Author: Diane Clements (Institute of Historical Research, University of London, UK)

Abstract

Studies of London’s financial market in the later eighteenth century have often focused on the market for public debt and the growth of institutional financial services. Consequently, the extent to which individual private lending continued to provide a means of credit has been overlooked. This article examines the practice of moneylending between 1770 and 1800 by thirty major financiers who were lending by purchasing life annuities from individual borrowers. It considers who they were, where they were based, and how they managed the associated risks. Lenders were drawn from a variety of social and economic backgrounds. They include men and women with private means and also those with commercial interests, attorneys, and financial intermediaries. Moneylending was not a fringe activity. Lenders worked collaboratively to a degree, and lived and worked alongside borrowers. They met a demand for individual financial provision not available from the contemporary banking system.

KEYWORDS:

Moneylending, risk, banking, attorneys, merchants, women in finance, collaborative finance

Published on The London Journal, 51(1), 51–70.

https://doi.org/10.1080/03058034.2025.2459543

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