The collapse of Thompson and Company: credit, reputation, and risk in early modern England

This article uses a case study of the bank of Thompson and Company (1671-1678) to demonstrate the interconnected nature of seventeenth-century finance, commerce, and politics. It focusses specifically on the collapse of the bank itself and examines the commercial and political circumstances surrounding it. Due to the limited surviving source material, which requires the bank to be reconstructed from a diverse range of sources, the bank of Thompson and Company is largely absent in existing financial, commercial, and political studies of early modern England. Therefore, this analysis uses a combination of Chancery records, pamphlets, institutional records, and correspondence to reconstruct the series of events that resulted in the failure of the bank. This study builds on the historiography of credit and reputation in early modern England. While historians have emphasised the positive outcomes for individuals occupying multiple roles in politics and commerce, the negative implications have not been addressed to the same extent. Ultimately, this study illuminates the negative side of public activity and office-holding, and the risk attached to inhabiting more than one position in a society functioning on the exchange of knowledge and reputation.