Abstract
The financial strains of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had a significant impact on the Bank of England. In its position as banker to the state and manager of the state's debt, it experienced a significant increase in workload and thus was forced rapidly to expand its workforce. From a complement of around 300 in the mid 1780s, the number of clerks employed had increased to over 900 in 1815. Using a unique set of records preserved in the Bank's archives, this article investigates the backgrounds and skills of the men recruited during the expansion of the early nineteenth century. It finds a significant gap between the skills required by the Bank and the skills possessed by its potential workforce.
Highlights
By the end of the eighteenth century the Bank of England was firmly entrenched as banker to the state and manager of the state’s debt (Bowen )
The skills of London’s financial workforce have been acknowledged in recent studies, little attention has been given to the development and quality of those skills (Cassis ; Michie )
Most of the historiography has concerned itself with the lives of Victorian clerks, especially during the later nineteenth century when their lifestyles and status supposedly came under threat from a rapidly expanding potential workforce, the seeming downgrading of the status of clerical labour and
Summary
Walpole De St Croix was somewhat ill advised in the claim he made in his application that he wanted to give up his position because he felt himself aggrieved when his current employer had docked his wages for being late to work a few times.[2] William Smithyman was on shaky ground when he informed the committee that service at sea for the East India Company had convinced him that he was ‘better leading a sedentary life than an active one’.3 Those candidates whose reasons were not deemed worthy of record must have instead emphasised the attractions of a steady wage, long-term job security and the prestige of working for the country’s premier financial institution. Even by the early nineteenth century, the driving force behind Britain’s economy and the place where the highest concentration and variety of jobs could be found
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