The Bank of England is personified as ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’ - conjuring images of a benevolent and homely old spinster at her sewing. However, the ‘old lady’ has a slightly less peaceable heritage than this image implies - the Bank of England was borne out of funding the war with France. In 1694, William III’s coffers were running low, threatening his war against the French. Two merchants agreed to loan the King the money - they would found a national bank who would lend money to the Government to finance arms and men to fight the French. The interest on the loan was to be paid by levying a public tax on alcohol and a further tax on shipping. The merchants who had put up the capital would get interest at 8% back from the British people.

The bank’s history has not always been smooth, with goldsmiths angry at a large proportion of their trade being snatched from them by the Bank, rival financial institutions gaining political capital and even an attack by a mob during the anti-Catholic Gordon riots. However, it survived with its stately reputation intact. Here are a few facts about the Bank of England…

• The Bank of England was the first private national bank in the world.
• Queen Elizabeth II is the only monarch to have appeared on a banknote, as monarchs have only appeared on banknotes since 1960.
• The outer walls of the bank were designed by the famous Georgian architect Sir John Soane but the buildings inside were completely reconstructed between 1925 and 1939 by Sir Herbert Baker (who remodelled Cecil Rhodes’ house in South Africa and who built South Africa House in Trafalgar Square).
• The bank has had it’s own security force since 1973 - before that it was protected by the government Brigade of Guards.
• There’s more space below ground at the Bank of England than there is above ground at Tower 42.
• The Bank of England bears the nickname ‘The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street’ after a 1797 cartoon by James Gilray depicting the bank as an old lady sitting on a chest of gold being forcibly courted by William Pitt the Younger (see below)
• A bank clerk who died in 1798 was worried that his body would be stolen by body snatchers (who supplied London’s surgeons with corpses for dissections) as at 6ft 7½inches tall he was considered a giant. The bank’s directors agreed to allow him to be buried in the bank garden, and the coffin was discovered during the rebuilding works in 1933 and safely removed to Nunhead cemetery.

Please click here to view the Bank of England & Royal Exchange virtual tour.

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Tags: bank of england, bank of england photos, bank of england virtual tour, city of london, gordon riots, james gilray, john soane, old lady of threadneedle street, royal exchange, threadneedle street

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 3:50 pm and is filed under London Facts, London History & Information, London Virtual Tours. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.