Men and Money | The Cosmopolitans

Brokers in the London sugar market bellow incomprehensibly at one another in a form of dealing known as 'open outcry', while the more exotic areas of the commodities market involve trades in any number of esoteric goods, from bleached Japanese seaweed to dried beaver testicles (an apparently indispensable ingredient of fine perfumes). The rigidly formal and exclusive world of the merchant banker is laid bare and the increasing popularity of London for foreign banks is also examined in this final part of the series.

A forerunner of the London Stock Exchange was formed in 1761 by a group of 150 stockbrokers and jobbers based around Jonathan's Coffee House in Change Alley. In 1773 the brokers built premises in Sweeting's Alley called New Jonathan's, but the members soon changed its name to the Stock Exchange. They moved to another new building at Capel Court in 1802 and the first regional exchanges opened in Manchester and Liverpool in 1836.