Investments, votes, and “bribes”: women as shareholders in the chartered national companies

Staves, Susan

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511558580.017

Cited by 22 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…By the mid‐eighteenth century, the rise of stockjobbers was being blamed on the alleged need of ladies for financial agents. See Staves, ‘Investments’, p. 270.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods¹

Spicksley

2007

The Economic History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article uses testamentary evidence from Lincoln diocesan court between the 1570s and the 1690s to examine links between inheritance, a rise in money-lending amongst single women, and an increase in the proportion of women that never married. Two trends emerge: first, more fathers after the 1570s chose to bequeath cash to their daughters; second, they were more likely to restrict access to this portion by age rather than marriage. Assisted by a softening of attitudes towards interestbearing lending, these changes offered some single women a measure of financial independence that may have impacted on their marriage decisions.

show abstract

“…By the mid‐eighteenth century, the rise of stockjobbers was being blamed on the alleged need of ladies for financial agents. See Staves, ‘Investments’, p. 270.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods¹

Spicksley

2007

The Economic History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…63 As Susan Staves points out, Women's History Review 209 women shareholders in joint stock companies were admitted as voters on equal terms with men, and were involved in appointments and in patronage. 64 While we can infer a good deal about Lady Betty's religious beliefs from her library, her correspondence, her circle of friends and acquaintances and her benefactions and legacies, we do not know what her beliefs about the propriety of the stock market were. She was a donor to the schemes of George Berkeley, but was she influenced by the views he expressed in 1721, that industry was the only true way to wealth, because 'projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, … must be ruinous to the public'?…”

Section: Fortune and Fundsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Lady Betty Hastings (1682–1739): godly patron

Laurence¹

2010

Women's History Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

1Anne Laurence 'Her life had chiefly for its direction two great objects, how she might exalt the glory of God and how demonstrate her own good will towards men'.2 This characterisation of Lady Elizabeth (Betty) Hastings refers to the qualities for which she was most well known: her godliness and her charity. Richard Steele wrote of her in the Tatler, 'To love her is a liberal education', and the entry in the old Dictionary of National Biography describes her as 'philanthropist', but these epithets do little justice to her life. 3 Not only did she give large sums of money to charitable uses, she took a close interest in the administration of charities, in clerical appointments, and in the movement for the reformation of manners. She did so in the spirit not merely of fulfilling her duty as a Christian, but also from a strong sense of family, not just of her ancestors, but of her household of unmarried half-sisters.Discussions of philanthropy usually dwell on the donors' debit side of the balance sheet, the gifts, endowments and legacies made by wealthy individuals, rather than on the credit side, the means by which such individuals were able to accumulate and disburse funds and release lands to such purposes. Unusually, we have, through correspondence and through bank records, a reasonable idea not only of how Lady Betty acquired her fortune and property, but also of how she looked after it. While she maintained an aristocratic view of noblesse oblige, she adapted her financial affairs to the age of the financial revolution, using the newly developing banking system and taking a position in the emerging stock market. Queen's College 2The presence of Betty Hastings's portrait in Queen's College, Oxford is testimony to her benefaction to the college, an endowment for exhibitions to the college for five boys from twelve parishes in Yorkshire, Cumberland and Westmoreland. The terms of the benefaction were extremely detailed: identifying the parishes from which the boys were to come and laying down exercises to be performed by the candidates. The ten best exercises were to be forwarded to the Provost and Fellows of the college who were then to elect the eight best candidates, from whom five finalists were to be chosen by lot, 'as leaving something to Providence'. 4 The exhibitions provided training for men intending to go into the church, and were for five years 'to take away the necessity of entering precipitately into holy orders'. The period after completing a bachelor of arts degree was to be used for theological studies (and what this involved was also specified). Exhibitioners had a considerable advantage from their awards for they became favoured candidates for the benefices which were in the gift of Lady Betty's heirs, one of which was worth £80 a year, the others of which were worth £100 or more.5

show abstract

“…31 One of them, Frances, pondered selling her East India stock in the autumn of 1720, hearing that its price was falling. 32 Insert Figures 4.4,4.5,4.6 near here 4.9…”

Section: Insert Table 41 Near Herementioning

confidence: 99%

“…3 Stock investment was seen as 'suitable for patriotic and prudent gentlemen, but ill-advised and dangerous for women', though it was patriotic to buy government debt. 4 Women were believed to lack judgement and to be gullible enough to be duped by unscrupulous brokers and jobbers. 5 It has long been assumed, too, that women were primarily interested in investment income rather than in trading gains.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Women, banks and the securities market in early eighteenth-century England

Laurence

2008

Routledge International Studies in Business History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This chapter is above all about women's agency, about their participation in the stock market, their increasing use of banks and the implied political choices in those activities. The understanding of women's political action, as a result of twenty years of research into both women and the relations between men and women, has led to an extension of our understanding of the political world beyond that of the male 'political nation' to include women's influence, patronage and the informal politics of locality, church and corporate bodies. 2 This chapter explores a further manifestation of women's participation in the politicised world of early eighteenth century England, especially during the period of the South Sea Bubble. This chapter is concerned with women investors in the South Sea Bubble of 1720 and the role that one particular bank played in facilitating their participation. The daring swap of government debt for equity in the South Sea Company and the share issues that accompanied this, the rapid inflation in share prices in the first half of 1720 and the ensuing collapse have become a byword for a stock market boom and bust. Historians of the Bubble have been much hampered by the destruction of the South Sea Company's share registers, so the customer ledgers of Hoare's Bank which record its customers' purchases and sales of stock, lottery tickets and government debt; dividend and interest payments on stock; and prizes from the lottery are a valuable source for the investment activities of private individuals at the time of the South Sea Bubble. The use of a bank was itself a novel activitybanks had until the late seventeenth century largely taken mercantile customers and dealt in loans and money transfers rather than serving as deposit banks. But by no means all banks acted for customers in this way. So this chapter considers the investments made by women customers of Hoare's Bank and the way in which their participation in the market was facilitated by the bank. The investment choices 4.2 made by the bank's customers give some credence to Bruce Carruthers's arguments about the politicisation of the market, so the chapter concludes with a consideration of the role of politics in the finances of Hoare's Bank customers. Women and investmentAttitudes to women's investment behaviour have been contradictory: in the eighteenth century women were taken as the prime example of those affected by the fever that swept up the population during the South Sea Bubble; later commentators have tended to treat them as conservative investors, choosing stock backed by the government for its supposed safety, the Bank of England over the other chartered companies, and annuities and bonds over stock. 3 Stock investment was seen as 'suitable for patriotic and prudent gentlemen, but ill-advised and dangerous for women', though it was patriotic to buy government debt. 4 Women were believed to lack judgement and to be gullible enough to be duped by unscrupulous brokers and jobbers. 5 It has long been assumed, too, that women were pr...

show abstract

Investments, votes, and “bribes”: women as shareholders in the chartered national companies

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods¹

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods¹

Lady Betty Hastings (1682–1739): godly patron

Women, banks and the securities market in early eighteenth-century England

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Investments, votes, and “bribes”: women as shareholders in the chartered national companies

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods1

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods1

Lady Betty Hastings (1682–1739): godly patron

Women, banks and the securities market in early eighteenth-century England

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods¹

Usury legislation, cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods¹