Table Of ContentMerchant Princes and
Charlatans or
Makers of Money?
Decoding Icons of Nineteenth Century
British and International Finance
Henry Sless
Merchant Princes and Charlatans or Makers
of Money?
Henry Sless
Merchant Princes
and Charlatans
or Makers of Money?
Decoding Icons of Nineteenth Century British
and International Finance
Henry Sless
University of Reading
Reading, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-86603-7 ISBN 978-3-030-86604-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86604-4
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Cover credit: whitemay/GettyImages
CoverImageCaption:Wheretokeepyourmoneyforthebest?Withsomanyconfidence
tricksters anxious to part you from it, you need to consider the matter carefully - sleight
of hand and misdirection can fool even the most sensible of men. From “Punch, or the
London Charivari”, Volume LXVIII (68), published in London in 1875.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
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Acknowledgements
I am indebted to my Ph.D. supervisors, Professor Peter Miskell, and
Associate Professor Lucy Newton, for their encouragement in turning
my interest in cartoons and financial history into reality. To my Ph.D.
reviewers, Professors Mark Casson of the University of Reading, and
Martin Daunton Emeritus Professor at the University of Cambridge, for
their helpful comments and their encouragement to turn my ideas into
a book. And to two members of the Oxford Department of Contin-
uing Education, Dr. Kate Watson, and the late Dr. Cathy Oakes. To
Kate whose course on political cartoons all those years ago inspired me
to begin my path towards becoming a cultural historian, and to Cathy
for encouraging my interest in studying cartoons as a source of historical
evidence.
TomyeditorsatPalgrave,LucyKidwell,andTulaWeis,whoseencour-
agement and support has been so welcome over the past year. And
to my copy editor, Anthony Sarankin, who has turned my less than
grammatically perfect prose into something polished.
And of course, to my wife Debs who has put up with my often-
obsessiveinterestinfinancialcartoonsoverthepasttenyears,andwithout
whose support I would not have reached the end of this journey.
Any errors and omissions are my own….
v
Key Books/Articles Per Chapter
Chapter 2 Financial Context
Akerloff, George A., & Robert J. Schiller, Animal Spirits How human
psychology drives the economy, and why it matters for global capitalism
(Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2010).
Crosthwaite, Paul, “Animality and ideology in contemporary economic
discourse Taxonomising Homo Economicus”, Journal of Cultural
Economy, 2013, 6: 1.
Itkowitz, David C., “Fair Enterprise or Extravagant Speculation: Invest-
ment, Speculation and Gambling in Victorian England”, pp. 98–119,
in Henry & Schmitt, (eds.), Victorian Investments New Perspectives on
Finance and Culture (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009).
Johnson Paul, “Civilizing Mammon: Law, Morals and the City in Nine-
teenth Century England”, in Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir
Keith Thomas, (eds.) Peter Burke, Brian Harrison, and Paul Slack
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000).
Klaus, Ian, Forging Capitalism Rogues, Swindlers, Frauds, and the rise of
Modern Finance (Yale, Yale University Press, 2014).
Kynaston, David, City of London: A world of its own 1815–1890, Volume
1 (London, Chatto & Windus, 1994).
Taylor, James, Boardroom Scandal, The Criminalization of Company
Fraud in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2013).
vii
viii KEYBOOKS/ARTICLESPERCHAPTER
Toms,Steven,“FinancialScandals:ahistoricaloverview”,Accountingand
Business Research, 45: 5.
Tucker, Sir Paul M.W., “Solvency as a fundamental constraint on LOLR
policy for Independent Central Banks: Principles, History, Law”,
Journal of Financial Crises, 2: 1.
Turner, John. D., Banking in crisis the rise and fall of British Banking
Stability, 1800to the present (Cambridge,CambridgeUniversityPress,
2014).
VanDriel,Hugo,“Financialfraud,scandalsandregulation:Aconceptual
framework and literature review”, Business History, 61: 8.
Chapter 3 Visual Culture
Allen, Ann Taylor, Satire & Society in Wilhelmine Germany Klad-
deradatsch and Simplicissimus 1890–1914, (Lexington, University of
Kentucky Press, 1984).
Altick, Richard. D., Punch: the lively youth of a British institution, 1841–
1851 (London, Ohio State University Press, 1997).
Banta, Martha, Barbaric Intercourse, Caricature and the Culture of
Conflict, 1841–1936 (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press,
2003).
Burke Peter, Eyewitnessing: the use of images as historical evidence
(London, Cornell University Press, 2001).
Finel-Honigman,Irene,ACulturalHistoryofFinance (Abingdon,Rout-
ledge, 2010).
Goldstein, Robert Justin, Censorship of political caricature in nineteenth-
century France (Kent, Kent State University Press, 1989).
Gombrich, E. H., Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays in the
Theory of Art (London, Phaidon Press, 2007).
Miller, Henry, Politics Personified Portraiture, Caricature and Visual
Culture in Victorian Britain, c 1830–1880 (Manchester, Manchester
University Press, 2015).
Scully, Richard, “Accounting for transformative moments in the history
of the political cartoon”, IJOCA, Fall/Winter 2014.
Taylor, James, “Business in Pictures: Representations of Railway Enter-
prise in the Satirical Press in Britain 1845–1870”, Past and Present,
No. 189 (November 2005).
KEYBOOKS/ARTICLESPERCHAPTER ix
“Thedebateovercensorshipofcaricatureinnineteenth-centuryFrance”,
Art Journal, 48: 1, Nineteenth-Century French Art Institutions
(Spring, 1989).
Chapter 4 Merchant Princes
Ferguson, Niall, The House of Rothschild: Vol. 1 Money’s Prophets 1798–
1848 (New York, Viking Penguin, 1999).
———, Vol. 2 The World’s Banker 1849–1999, (New York, Viking
Penguin, 1999).
Osborne, “The Journal Vanity Fair and later Victorian politics”, The
Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, 2012.
Ziegler, P., The sixth great power: Barings 1762–1929 (London, Collins,
1988).
Chapter 5 Charlatans
Davenport-Hines, R.P.T., (ed.) Speculators and Patriots Essays in Business
Biography (London, Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1986).
Robb,George,White-CollarCrimeinModernEngland:FinancialFraud
and Business Morality, 1845–1929 (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1992).
Stratmann,Linda,TheCrookswhoconnedmillionsTruestoriesoffraudsters
and charlatans (Stroud, Sutton Publishing, 2006).
Chapter 6 Financial Iconography
BurnsSarah,“PartyAnimals:ThomasNast,WilliamHolbrookBeard,and
the Bears of Wall Street” American Art Journal, 30: 1/2, 1999.
Fraser,Steve,EverymanaspeculatorAHistoryofWallStreetinAmerican
Life (New York, Harper Perennial, 2006).
John, Richard R., “Robbers Baron redux: Antimonolopy reconsidered”,
Enterprise & Society, 13: 1, 2012.
Taylor, James, “Business in Pictures: Representations of Railway Enter-
prise in the Satirical Press in Britain 1845–1870”, Past and Present,
No. 189 (November 2005).
x KEYBOOKS/ARTICLESPERCHAPTER
Chapter 7 Women
Green,D.R.,A.Owens,J.MaltbyandJ.Rutterford(eds.),Men,Women
and Money: Perspectives on Gender, Wealth and Investment, 1850–1930
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011).
Healey, Edna, Coutts & Co 1692–1992: The Portrait of a Private Bank
(London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1992).
Poovey, Genres of the Credit Economy: Mediating value in eighteenth
century and nineteenth century Britain (London, University of
Chicago Press, 2008).
Chapter 8 The Other
Arendt, Hannah, The origins of totalitarianism (London, Penguin Clas-
sics, 2017).
Rubens, Alfred, “The Rothschilds in caricature”, Transactions & Miscel-
lanies (Jewish Historical Society of England), 22.
Stern, Fritz, Gold and Iron Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the
German Empire (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1977).
Wohl, Anthony S., ‘Ben JuJu’ -representations of Disraeli’s Jewishness in
the Victorian political cartoon, Jewish History, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Fall,
1996).
Chapter 9 The Law
Meisel, Martin, Realizations Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts
in Nineteenth-Century England (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton
University Press, 1983).
Wilson, Gary, and Sarah Wilson, “The pursuit of “socially useful bank-
ing” in Twenty-First Century Britain and exploring Victorian inter-
actions between law, religion, and financial marketplace values”, 22
Nottingham Law Journal, 53, 2013.
Key Words
Animal spirits
Animal spirits come from the Latin spiritus animalis: ‘the breath that
awakens the human mind’. It was coined by British economist, John
KEYBOOKS/ARTICLESPERCHAPTER xi
Maynard Keynes in 1936. It refers to the ways that human emotion can
drive financial decision making in uncertain environments and volatile
times.
Anti-Semitism
The belief or behaviour hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish.
It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority
of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise
injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about
Jews.
Bank discount rate
The bank discount rate is the interest rate for short-term money
market instruments like commercial paper and Treasury bills offered by a
Central Bank.
Behavioural economics
Behavioural economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive,
emotional, cultural, and social factors on the decisions of individuals and
institutions and how those decisions vary from those implied by classical
economic theory.
Bestiary
The symbolic use of animals to convey meaning.
Bill broking
A person or organisation that buys bills of exchange for
a lower amount of money than they are worth and makes
a profit by selling them for more or keeping them until they are paid.
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that is full of additional elements, whether these
are simple physical exaggerations or deliberate misrepresentations and
analogies designed to make a political point.
Nowadays the caricature is seen as a type of cartoon but in fact,
although caricature had been around since the mid-1600s, the first
modern use of the word ‘cartoon’ was two centuries later, in an 1843
edition of Punch.
Charlatans
Someonewhoresortstobogusmeansofimpressingpeopletoswindlehis
victims by selling them worthless goods or services that will not deliver
on the promises made for them.
