Bank of England
The bank was founded by the Scotsman William Paterson, in 1694 to act as the English government's banker. He proposed a loan of £1.2m to the government; in return the subscribers would be incorporated as The Governor and Company of the Bank of England with banking privileges including the issue of notes. The Royal Charter was granted on July 27, 1694. Public finances were in so dire a condition at the time that the terms of the loan were that it was to be serviced at a rate of 8% per annum, and there was also a service charge of £4000 per annum for the management of the loan. The first governor was Sir John Houblon, who is depicted in the £50 note issued in 1990. The charter was renewed in 1742, 1764, and 1781. The Bank was originally constructed above the ancient Temple of Mithras, London at Walbrook, dating to the founding of Londinium in antiquity by Roman garrisons. Mithras was, among other things, considered the god of contracts, a fitting association for the Bank. In 1734 the Bank moved to its current location on Threadneedle Street, slowly acquiring the land to create the edifice seen today. Sir Herbert Baker's rebuilding of the Bank of England, demolishing most of Sir John Soane's earlier building was described by Pevsner as "the greatest architectural crime, in the City of London, of the twentieth century".
When the idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century this was also managed by the bank. By the charter renewal in 1781 it was also the bankers' bank—keeping enough gold to pay its notes on demand until February 26, 1797 when war had so diminished gold reserves that the government prohibited the Bank from paying out in gold. This prohibition lasted until 1821.
The 1844 Bank Charter Act tied the issue of notes to the gold reserves and gave the bank sole rights with regard to the issue of banknotes. Private banks which had previously had that right retained it, provided that their headquarters were outside London and that they deposited security against the notes that they issued. A few English banks continued to issue their own notes until the last of them was taken over in the 1930s. The Scottish and Northern Irish private banks still have that right. Britain remained on the gold standard until 1931 when the gold and foreign exchange reserves were transferred to the Treasury. But their management was still handled by the Bank. In 1870 the bank was given responsibility for interest rate policy.
During the governorship of Montagu Norman, which lasted from 1920 to 1944, the Bank made deliberate efforts to move away from commercial banking and become a central bank. In 1946, shortly after the end of Norman's tenure, the bank was nationalised.
In 1997 the bank's Monetary Policy Committee was given sole responsibility for setting interest rates to meet the Government's stated inflation target of 2.5%. This decision was taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown in consultation with Tony Blair prior to the 1997 general election though the announcement was made the day after the election. Should inflation overshoot or undershoot the target by more than 1%, the Governor will have to write a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining why, and how he will remedy the situation. This was considered an astute move for several reasons:
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Bank of England
Functions of the Bank
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It performs all the functions of a central bank -- to maintain price stability, and subject to that, to support the economic policy of Her Majesty's Government (Bank of England Act 1998) in order to promote economic growth.
In pursuing its goal of maintaining a stable and efficient financial framework, the Bank has two core purposes;
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Wealth
Wealth in the form of land
Many indigenous cultures reject the notion of land wealth. In western tradition, the concepts of owning land and accumulating wealth in the form of land, are derrived from Biblical tradition, where God told the Israelites to go in and take posession of the promised land of Caanan.
Land ownership was also justified according to John Locke. He claimed that because we admix our labour with the land, we thereby deserve the right to control the use of the land and benefit from the product of that land, subject to the Lockean proviso of "at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others." Additionally, in our post agricultural society this argument has many critics (including those influenced by Georgist and geolibertarian ideas) that argue that since people did not create land, they have no right of property over it. Still, many older ideas have resurfaced in the modern notions of ecological stewardship, bioregionalism, natural capital, and ecological economics.
It is possible to have a "large" wealthy family for example you could have cousins, uncles, grandfathers or other family members that are wealthy and therefore would accumulate wealth on a whole. Whether it may be on your Father's or your mother's side
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Gold standard
International Gold Standard and the First Age of Globalization (1871-1901)
Germany was created as a unified country following the Franco-Prussian War; it established the Reichsmark, went on to a strict gold standard, and used gold mined in South Africa to expand the money supply. Rapidly most other nations followed suit, since gold became a transportable, universal and increasingly stable unit of valuation. See Globalization.
Dates of adoption of a gold standard:
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