The ‘consequence of an advertisement’: intermediation in the eighteenth-century credit market

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the changing nature of intermediation in the market for private credit. Intermediaries used the impersonal medium of newspaper advertisements to demonstrate the value of their role and their abilities in a credit market apparently still reliant on personal reputation and standing. They then sought to turn these initial, impersonal, transactional contacts into more personal, profitable relationships. While this use of advertisements suggests a move towards a market in which credit transactions were less personal, the realities of contact in the increasingly fragmented provision of private finance were more complex and social relationships remained important in intermediation.