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This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric
Alexander with any comments or queries. |
18th
century finance
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The heart of commercial operations was the Bill of Exchange (a
written request or order to pay a certain sum of money without conditions) and
the Promissory Note (a promise to pay), both of which rested on assumptions
of others' creditworthiness. From
Davidoff & Hall, Family fortunes: Men and women of the English Middle
Class, 1780-1850 (Routledge 1994). |
How much is it
worth?
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Georgiana's father was only eleven when his own
father died of alcoholism, leaving behind an estate worth £750,00 – roughly
equivalent to £45 million today. It
was one of the largest fortunes in England and included 100,000 acres in
twenty-seven different counties, five substantial residences, and a sumptuous
collection of plate, jewels and old master paintings. Lord Spencer had an income of £700 a week
in an era when a gentleman could live off £300 a year. From Amanda Foreman, Georgiana
Duchess of Devonshire. A footnote adds: “The
usual method for estimating equivalent twentieth-century values is to
multiply by sixty.” |
This in a period when a top
skilled craftsman might earn £4 per week, while a textile worker outside London
earns 7s.6d. A common soldier's
earnings are £14 per year, as against £600 for the richest merchants (some 1000
families, according to one source). A
supper of bread, cheese & beer costs three (old) pence, a dentist charges
2s.6d to extract a tooth, a bottle of champagne sells for eight shillings. Expenses of installing new plant at
Cyfarthfa around 1789: £50,000.
Alexander Trotter's starting
salary as a Navy clerk is £50 per annum.
As Paymaster he receives £500, later raised to £800. At the same time the salary of the Treasurer
of the Navy is raised, from £2,000 to £4,000 per annum, "to discourage
peculation".
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Joseph Priestley when he came to the New Meeting in
1780 was offered a stipend of £100.
This could not conceivably have covered the expenses of his comfortable
middle-class establishment with costs augmented by his scientific work. Priestley was able to rely on his richer friends and relatives to support him. From L Davidoff & C
Hall, Family fortunes: Men and women of the English Middle Class,
1780-1850 (Routledge, 1994). |
As from 1733, a candidate for the Bench needed to
have an income from land of over £100 a year.. a squire needed to have £500 a
year, at the very least. From Virgin, The Church in an Age of Negligence:
Ecclesiastical Structure and Problems of Church Reform, 1700-1840
(Cambridge 1989). |
Gambling and other debts
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For as small a debt as £2 on the oath of a single creditor a
small master or shopkeeper could be removed from his business and his family. From Rule, Albion's People: English
Society 1714-1815 (London 1992). |
A few weeks after the demise
of Cort and Jellicoe (is it just coincidence?) Samuel
Homfray visits a gaming house in Cardiff and loses over £300 at "Lazarus". Small beer.
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Mr. Homfray if you take my advice don't give any note for you
have been most egregiously cheated.
The cards were marked. Words attributed to John Richards, "a
young gentleman of unimpeachable character", at a gaming session in
Cardiff on Saturday 6th October, 1789. |
According to Cowie (Hanoverian
England 1714-1837), Lord Stavordale lost £12,000 in a single throw of dice
in 1770, while Charles James Fox (at the age of sixteen)
and his elder brother lost £32,000 at cards over three days and nights. At one point the Duchess of Devonshire is
reckoned to have run up debts of £60,000 by borrowing, gambling and general
extravagance: she is offered a generous loan by Thomas Coutts. As for the Prince of Wales...
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The debts must have had a beginning, but they had no end. So far back as August 1784, the Prince
admitted to a sum of £269,000, but the King was angered at the disclosure and
the debts were allowed to accumulate. In 1787, after Fox had categorically denied that the Prince was
privately married to Mrs Fitzherbert, Parliament voted £161,000 towards the
payment of back debts, and £25,000 to the completion of Carlton House; but in
April, 1795, when the Prince had consented to what was in reality a bigamous
union with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, Pitt stated in Parliament that
the Prince owed a sum of £630,000. From E.H. Coleridge, The Life of Thomas
Coutts, Banker (London 1920). |
Do these figures put Cort's alleged
debt of £27,500 into perspective?
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is not necessarily a debilitating experience, as both
Henry Cort and Charles
Gascoigne discover. In Gascoigne’s case,
his creditors continue to employ him.
Cort is helped by his friends’ generosity, as are others…
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John Perry, an Ipswich draper, was
twice declared bankrupt in the hard times of the 1820s and 1830s. He was supported by the powerful and
wealthy members of his local Quaker congregation. From John Rule, Albion's
People: English Society 1714-1815. |
Poor Davies, the bankrupt
Bookseller, is soliciting his Friends to collect a small sum for the
repurchase of part of his household stuff.
Several of them give him five guineas. It would be an honour to him, to owe part of his relief to Mrs.
Montague. From letter of Samuel Johnson to Elizabeth Montagu, 5 March 1778. |
I have myself subscribed £500 and
have the satisfaction to find several persons who have offer'd upon this
occasion their £50 and £100. From letter of Thomas Pitt to
Elizabeth Montagu concerning popular society figure Richard Berenger, March
1778. |
Such
generosity helps Cort to escape from bankruptcy after
a few months.
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When sufficient creditors, (the
proportion varied from 3/4 to 4/5, by number and value), were satisfied and
had signed a request for a Certificate of Conformity (a statement that the
bankrupt had satisfied all the legal requirements), the Commissioners could
issue the certificate which effectively discharged him, although dividends
might continue to be paid after that date.
From PRO information leaflet L005, Bankrupts
and Insolvent Debtors: 1710-1869. |
Cort’s certificate of conformity is registered on 14 April 1790.
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