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

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 20 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.