Two of my husband’s ancestors were Governors of the Bank of England. Given that my day job has often required me to pay attention to macro economics, which more often than not helped cure my insomnia, I found this particularly interesting.

Matthews Beachcroft and Samuel Beachcroft are my husband’s 6th Great Grandfather and 7th Great Grandfather respectively.   (They were also the only members of the same family to be BoE Governors.) I would love to know what Mark Carney thinks of these two and if he thinks they did anything useful for the economy during their time as Governor.

Matthews, born in 1700 and was the Governor of the Bank of England between 1756 and 1758.  He had been Deputy Governor from 1754 to 1756.    His son Samuel was born in 1731 in London and was also a Governor of the Bank of England between 1775 and 1777.  He was Deputy Governor between 1773 and 1775. 

Their tenures took place during the Bengal Bubble which was caused by overvaluation of the East India Company stock, leading ultimately to the Great East Indian Crash in 1769.  The bubble and crash took place following the conquest of Bengal by the East India Company in 1757 by Robert Clive, resulting in increased powers by the company through a puppet regime.  A series of bailout measures and increasing control by the crown led to the demise of the company.

The portraits below show Matthews on the left as a boy and an older Samuel on the right.  These portraits were sold as part of a fine portrait miniatures collection at Bonhams in 2004.