The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one of the bankers for the Government of the United Kingdom, it is the world's eighth-oldest bank.
William Paterson was a Scottish trader and banker. He was the founder of the Bank of England and was one of the main proponents of the catastrophic Darien scheme. Later he became an advocate of union with England.
Sir John Houblon was an English merchant and banker who served as the first governor of the Bank of England from 1694 to 1697. He also served as the Lord Mayor of London in 1695.
Sir Gilbert Heathcote, 1st Baronet was an English merchant and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1701 and 1733. He also served as the governor of the Bank of England and was Lord Mayor of London in 1711.
Narcissus Luttrell (1657–1732) was an English historian, diarist, and bibliographer, and briefly Member of Parliament for two different Cornish boroughs. His Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, a chronicle of the Parliaments of England and Great Britain, was distilled from his diary and published in 1857, after Macaulay had drawn attention to the manuscript in All Souls College, Oxford.
Thomas Neale (1641–1699) was an English project-manager and politician who was also the first person to hold a position equivalent to postmaster-general of the North American colonies.
Edmund Dunch of Little Wittenham, Berkshire and Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, was an English Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1701 and 1719.
Sir William Ashhurst was an English banker, merchant and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1689 to 1710. He was also Lord Mayor of London in 1693.
William Chaloner was a serial counterfeit coiner and confidence trickster, who was imprisoned in Newgate Prison several times and eventually proven guilty of high treason by Sir Isaac Newton, Warden of the Royal Mint. He was hanged on the gallows at Tyburn on 22 March 1699.
Anthony Hammond (1668–1738), of Somersham Place, Somersham, Huntingdonshire and Lidlington, Bedfordshire, was an English official and Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1695 and 1708. He was also known as a poet and pamphleteer.
Phineas Bowles was an English army major-general.
Edmund Boulter, was a London merchant and politician. He was the eldest son of John Boulter, a maltster, twice mayor of Abingdon and his wife born Susannah Cutler, sister of Sir John Cutler, 1st Baronet, later Edmund's business partner.
Sir Henry Furnese, 1st Baronet, of Waldershare, Kent, and Dover Street, Westminster, was an English merchant and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1698 and 1712.
Sir James Montgomery, 4th Baronet was the tenth laird of Skelmorlie. He was a Scottish politician known for the Montgomery Plot, a Jacobite scheme to restore King James VII and II to the thrones of Scotland and England.
Sir William Scawen was a British MP and Governor of the Bank of England.
Sir Thomas Scawen was a British merchant, financier and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1708 and 1722. He was Governor of the Bank of England from 1721 to 1723.
Major-General Thomas Handasyd was a British Army officer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Jamaica from 1702 until 1711. Born in Elsdon, Northumberland, he served during the Stuart period from 1674 to 1710.
Sir John Ward, of Hookfield, Clay Hill, Epsom, Surrey and St Laurence Pountney, London, was a British merchant, banker and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1701 and 1726. He was an original Governor of the Bank of England and served as Lord Mayor of London in 1718.
Sir James Bateman was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1711 to 1718. He became Lord Mayor of London and Governor of the Bank of England.
Peter Godfrey (1665–1724) was a British merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1724.
