London Stock Exchange Building

The Kingdom of Change Alley—A William III. Reuter—Stock Exchange Tricks—Bulls and Bears—Thomas Guy, the Hospital Founder—Sir John Barnard, the "Great Commoner"—Sampson Gideon, the famous Jew Broker—Alexander Fordyce—A cruel Quaker Criticism—Stockbrokers and Longevity—The Stock Exchange in 1795—The Money Articles in the London Papers—The Case of Benjamin Walsh, M.P.—The De Berenger Conspiracy—Lord Cochrane unjustly accused—"Ticket Pocketing"—System of Business at the Stock Exchange—"Popgun John"—Nathan Rothschild—Secrecy of his Operations—Rothschild outdone by Stratagem—Grotesque Sketch of Rothschild—Abraham Goldsmid—Vicissitudes of the Stock Exchange—The Spanish Panic of 1835—The Railway Mania—Ricardo's Golden Rules—A Clerical Intruder in Capel Court—Amusements of Stockbrokers—Laws of the Stock Exchange—The Pigeon Express—The "Alley Man"—Purchase of Stock—Eminent Members of the Stock Exchange.The Royal Exchange, in the reign of William III., being found vexatiously thronged, the moneydealers, in 1698, betook themselves to Change Alley, then an unappropriated area. A writer of the period says:—"The centre of jobbing is in the kingdom of 'Change Alley. You may go over its limits in about a minute and a half. Stepping out of Jonathan's into the Alley, you turn your face full south; moving on a few paces, and then turning to the east, you advance to Garraway's; from thence, going out at the other door, you go on, still east, into Birchin Lane; and then, halting at the Swordblade Bank, you immediately face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces there on your way to the west; and thus, having boxed your compass, and sailed round the stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan's again."Sir Henry Furnese, a Bank director, was the Reuter of those times. He paid for constant despatches from Holland, Flanders, France, and Germany. His early intelligence of every battle, and especially of the fall of Namur, swelled his profits amazingly. King William gave him a diamond ring as a reward for early information; yet he condescended to fabricate news, and his plans for influencing the funds were probably the types of similar modern tricks. If Furnese wished to buy, his brokers looked gloomy; and, the alarm spread, completed their bargains. In this manner prices were lowered four or five per cent. in a few hours. The Jew Medina, we are assured, granted Marlborough an annuity of £6,000 for permission to attend his campaigns, and amply repaid himself by the use of the early intelligence he obtained.When, in 1715, says "Aleph," the Pretender landed in Scotland, after the dispersion of his forces, a carriage and six was seen in the road near Perth, apparently destined for London. Letters reached the metropolis announcing the capture of the discomfited Stuart; the funds rose, and a large profit was realised by the trick. Stock-jobbers must have been highly prosperous at that period, as a Quaker, named Quare, a watchmaker of celebrity, who had made a large fortune by money speculations, had for his guests at his daughter's wedding-feast the famous Duchess of Marlborough and the Princess of Wales, who attended with 300 quality visitors.During the struggle between the old and new East India Companies, boroughs were sold openly in the Alley to their respective partisans; and in 1720 Parliamentary seats came to market there as commonly as lottery tickets. Towards the close of Anne's reign, a well-dressed horseman rode furiously down the Queen's Road, loudly proclaiming her Majesty's demise. The hoax answered, the funds falling with ominous alacrity; but it was observed, that while the Christian jobbers kept aloof, Sir Manasseh Lopez and the Hebrew brokers bought readily at the reduced rate.The following extracts from Cibber's play of The Refusal; or, the Ladies' Philosophy, produced in 1720, show the antiquity of the terms "bull" and "bear." This comedy abounds in allusions to the doings in' Change Alley, and one of the characters, Sir Gilbert Wrangle, is a South Sea director:—Granger (to Witling, who has been boasting of his gain): And all this out of 'Change Alley?Witling: Every shilling, sir; all out of stocks, puts, bulls, shams, bears and bubbles.And again:—There (in the Alley) you'll see a duke dangling after a director; here a peer and a 'prentice haggling for an eighth; there a Jew and a parson making up differences; there a young woman of quality buying bears of a Quaker; and there an old one selling refusals to a lieutenant of grenadiers.The following is from an old paper, dated July 15th, 1773: "Yesterday the brokers and others at 'New Jonathan's' came to a resolution, that instead of its being called 'New Jonathan's,' it should be called 'The Stock Exchange,' which is to be wrote over the door. The brokers then collected sixpence each, and christened the House with punch."
From: 'The Stock Exchange', Old and New London: Volume 1 (1878), pp. 473-494. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45059 Date accessed: 21 April 2009.