The Bubble Act: New Perspectives from Passage to Repeal and Beyond

Description

This book reassesses the actual effects of the Bubble Act, still popularly associated with the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. The book builds on the foundational work of Ron Harris to discuss the act’s effect on corporate governance, literary culture, colonial law, and the Industrial Revolution. The Bubble Act was deemed an empty letter within England itself as it was rarely used in legal proceedings. Several chapters consider whether this was the case outside England, from Scotland to the Americas, India, and Africa. Others assess the impact of the act, both on literary culture and in the history of economic thought. The act has been conceptualized as a brake on economic development or of little consequence. This edited collection offers a timely reassessment of the Bubble Act and its legacy.   Foreword References Acknowledgements Contents Editors and Contributors About the Editors Contributors List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction References 2 The Bubble Act and the First Corporate Economy 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Business Incorporation Under the Bubble Act 2.3 Unincorporated Companies and the Power of Association 2.4 Revival and Repeal of the Bubble Act 2.5 Aftermath: From Repeal to Registration References 3 ‘Mr Morice Is Said to Appear at the Head’: The Bubble Act and an Aborted Joint-Stock Slave-Trading Company 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Death and (Brief) Rebirth of Joint-Stock Companies in the African Trade 3.3 Accrediting Investors 3.4 Contending with the Bubble Act 3.5 Conclusion References 4 ‘That Ever-Memorable Year of Epidemical Infatuation’: Incorporation, the Jamaica Mines Company, and the Bubble Act of 1720 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Context 4.3 Formation 4.4 Failure 4.5 Conclusion References 5 Pamphlet Poetry and the South Sea Bubble 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Bubble Year 5.3 Describing a Bubble 5.4 Pamphlets, Doggerel, and Finance 5.5 Before the Crash: June to August 1720 5.6 Imagining the South Sea After the Crash: September–December 1720 5.7 Conclusion References 6 Decoding the Bubble: Popular Magic, Financial Deception, and Eliza Haywood’s Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia References 7 Consequences Unintended: The Bubble Act and American Independence 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Bubble Trouble 7.3 Money for Me, Not Thee 7.4 Off to Gaol 7.5 Homespun Nonimportation 7.6 Hopes Dashed by the Bubble Act 7.7 Conclusion Appendix: Full Transcript of Anon. 1768 References 8 Capitalism by Generalists: The Governance of the Ayr Bank and the Emergence of Professionalism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Scottish Banking 8.1 Banking History in Scotland 8.2 The Ayr Bank 8.3 The Bankers 8.4 Learning to Be a Banker 8.5 Conclusion References 9 Royal Charters, Royal Power, and the Business of Empire 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Evolution of the Joint-Stock Company Form 9.3 Royal Charters and Royal Neutrality 9.4 The Royal Charters 9.5 Royal Charters and For-Profit Businesses 9.6 Charters Under Attack 9.7 The Cost of a Charter 9.8 Conclusion References 10 Babbage’s Age of Speculation: Calculating the Value of Life After the Repeal of the Bubble Act 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Speculating Lives 10.3 Babbage’s Value of Life 10.4 Reading Babbage; Reforming Life Assurance 10.5 Conclusion References 11 The Repeal of the Bubble Act and the Debate Between the Currency School and the Banking School 11.1 The Repeal of the Bubble Act 11.2 The Legal Background 11.3 The Two Schools of Thought 11.4 The Causes of Financial Crises 11.5 Theory and Policy 11.6 Conclusion References 12 Agency Houses in Bengal and the Indigo Bubble 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Background 12.3 The Bubble Act and Its Impact on the Metropolis and Colonies 12.4 The East India Company, Houses of Agency, and the Indigo Boom 12.5 Agency Houses and Indigo Trade Crisis 12.6 Toward the Companies Acts 12.7 Conclusion References 13 Epilogue References Index