Edward Backwell

Edward Backwell is generally considered to be the founding father of the English banking system. The town of Backwell in Somerset is named after the family from which he came, and his ancestors were traced back to the Battle of Poi tiers in 1356.

Between 1635 and 1640, he came to London and married the daughter of a London merchant. His date of birth is not known but by 1650, the state papers mention him lending £500 in pieces of eight to the government. Backwell's money making was evident in 1653, when he had a bill for £1,380 for victualling ships.
A year later, parliament bought back Old Bushy Park, near Hampton Court, and other lands he had acquired, probably during the Cromwellian sell off of the Crown estate, for £6,202. The turbulence of the Civil War had made the goldsmiths, already money changers, much safer keepers of deposits than the government, which either seized ·all the deposits periodically, or devalued the currency.

Despite his financing of Cromwell's government, Backwell prospered after the restoration in 1660. He became the manager of King Charles II's money and handled the sale of Dunkirk to the French for £180,000 in 1662, receiving £1,500 in commission. His goldsmiths shop, under the sign of the Unicorn, was sited next to Lombard Street, which became the premier banking street for the next three centuries.

Backwell declined a knighthood but owned lands around the country. Of the total Exchequer borrowings of £1,828,526 in 1672, £295,995 was borrowed from Backwell and he became an MP in 1679.

His contemporaries reckoned his estate was worth about £300,000 on his death, about 0.66o/o of net national income of £45m at the time. In today's terms this would be worth £7.3bn.