- Thomas Raikes
:"This article is about the Governor of the Bank of England. For his son, the diarist and dandy, see"
Thomas Raikes (dandy) .Thomas Raikes ("the Elder") (
28 March ,1741 –29 December ,1813 ) was a Britishbank er and newspaper proprietor. Notably, he wasGovernor of the Bank of England during the 1797 currency crisis, when the Bank was prohibited by the British Government from paying out in gold.Biography
Raikes was born at
Gloucester in 1741, third son of Mary Drew and the elder Robert Raikes.In December 1774, Raikes married Charlotte, daughter of Henry Finch,
Earl of Winchilsea Fact|date=February 2007. With Charlotte he had four sons and five daughters. Eldest son Thomas became a noted London diarist; another son, Henry, became a churchman, eventually Chancellor of theDiocese of Chester .Governor of the Bank of England 1797–1799
Thomas Raikes was Governor of the
Bank of England from from 1797 to 1799, and was therefore Governor during the crisis of 1797 when war had so diminishedgold reserves that the Government prohibited the Bank from paying out in gold and ordered the Bank to replace the payment out of gold bybanknote s.On 26 February 1797, in spite of it being a Sunday, the Privy Council convened to discuss measures of preventing the country’s financial ruin. The reserves in the Bank of England were dangerously low, and the news that a French squadron had landed on the coast of
Fishguard , Wales, had just reached the capital the previous day. On the following day, people who went to the Bank of England were given handbills, which communicated that by Order of the Privy Council the Bank had suspended the cash payment of their notes. The Bank on that day issued the first£1 and£2 sterling banknotes . The Bank of England was beginning to assume the status of acentral bank , and the people used and became accustomed to inconvertible papermoney .Thomas Raikes was a personal friend of
William Wilberforce , the leader of the campaign against theslave trade and also a personal friend ofWilliam Pitt the Younger .Raikes died in 1813.
=References=
*
Senate House Library,University of London : Raikes, Thomas : An account book covering the period 31 March 1802-31 October 1808....*Source: Kent's Directory for the Year 1794. Cities of London and Westminster, & Borough of Southwark.
*Cfr D. RAIKES, "Pedigree of Raikes", published 1980
*J.M. HARRIS, "Robert Raikes, the man and his works."
*Frank BOOTH, "Robert Raikes of Gloucester" published 1980.
*John CLAPHAM " History of the Bank of England"
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