Credit and Debt in Eighteenth-Century England : An Economic History of Debtors’ Prisons Hardback
by Alexander Wakelam
Part of the Perspectives in Economic and Social History series
Hardback
Description
Throughout the eighteenth century hundreds of thousands of men and women were cast into prison for failing to pay their debts.
This apparently illogical system where debtors were kept away from their places of work remained popular with creditors into the nineteenth century even as Britain witnessed industrialisation, market growth, and the increasing sophistication of commerce, as the debtors’ prisons proved surprisingly effective. Due to insufficient early modern currency, almost every exchange was reliant upon the use of credit based upon personal reputation rather than defined collateral, making the lives of traders inherently precarious as they struggled to extract payments based on little more than promises.
This book shows how traders turned to debtors’ prisons to give those promises defined consequences, the system functioning as a tool of coercive contract enforcement rather than oppression of the poor.
Credit and Debt demonstrates for the first time the fundamental contribution of debt imprisonment to the early modern economy and reveals how traders made use of existing institutions to alleviate the instabilities of commerce in the context of unprecedented market growth. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in economic history and early modern British history.
Information
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Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:254 pages, 5 Tables, black and white; 8 Line drawings, black and white; 8 Illustrations, black and w
- Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication Date:03/07/2020
- Category:
- ISBN:9780367137113
Other Formats
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Information
-
Out of stock
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:254 pages, 5 Tables, black and white; 8 Line drawings, black and white; 8 Illustrations, black and w
- Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication Date:03/07/2020
- Category:
- ISBN:9780367137113
