ABSTRACT
In spite of the large sums lavished in financing the “new” nationalities, and in equipping the ephemeral joint-stock ventures of 1826, as well as the innumerable railway projects which followed them, it remains true that down to the accession of Queen Victoria a huge proportion of investment was on mortgage. The reason, as Sergeant Onslow told Parliament in 1825, was that land was “the best and readiest security 1 which could be offered for money.” The Solicitor-General said at the same time, that nine out of every ten estates in the kingdom were loaded with mortgages—one of the results of the terrific taxation necessitated by the Napoleonic wars. A multitude of small investors clung to the Funds. Baring said in 1830 that out of the holders of the 274,823 stock accounts then on the books of the Bank of England, 250,000 did not receive a greater half-yearly dividend than £100, and the number of half-yearly dividends of £500 did not exceed 2000. Of course, when the early Victorian public completely lost its head, as it did in the railway mania, the investing class was temporarily recruited from all sections of the community. The Government return of railway shareholders, issued in 1846, shows that there were upwards of 20,000 subscribers to the lines and branches 465seeking authorisation in one session alone. These recruits included attorneys’ clerks, college scouts, butchers, coachmen, dairymen, beer sellers, butlers, footmen, and mail guards. But, broadly, the proposition remains true that these classes did not enter the arena of investment for many years after the railway craze. When the mortgage began to go out of favour investment in stocks and shares of the industrial type, as well as in the best class of foreign bond, was still a privilege restricted to the wealthy. A typical list of shareholders of the mid-Victorian period will be found to include practically only representatives of the wealthy, landed, and professional classes. Their holdings, moreover, were all in large blocks. 1
