ABSTRACT
The London Stock Exchange was not unique among City institutions, for the retail banking, merchant banking and insurance markets were all organised in a similar manner. Wider City interests were increasingly monitored by the Bank of England, which became the City's principal interlocutor with government, providing some insulation for individual institutions from immediate pressures and interpreting for government the intentions and fears of the City. The outcome was an existential crisis in 1929 when a series of trading failures and mistakes coincided with the advent of a Labour government which was believed to regard the Exchange, together with other City institutions, as a target for reform. In retrospect, people might doubt the power of the minority Labour government to carry through a programme of reform. Technically, it would have been possible for the Exchange to close this gap by imposing its own requirements on quoted companies.
