Economic History

Richard Cavendish explains how Europe's earliest modern-style banknotes were introduced by the Bank of Stockholm in the 17th century.

In the late 18th century the merchants, manufacturers and traders of Liverpool founded one of the first chambers of commerce in Britain with the aim of promoting the local economy. Bob Bennett looks at early parallels with the Coalition government’s plans for local partnerships.

The great trading companies that originated in early modern Europe are often seen as pioneers of western imperialism. The Levant Company was different, argues James Mather.

The first Pony Express riders set off on April 3rd, 1860.

The successful Broadway run of The Pitmen Painters, Lee Hall’s drama set in a north-east mining community, has introduced US audiences to a remarkable chapter in British working-class life, writes  Robert Colls.

Geoff Coyle revisits an article by Chris Wrigley, first published in History Today in 1984, examining the mining dispute of 1926,which developed into Britain’s first and, to date, only general strike.

The farthing ceased to be legal tender on December 31st, 1960.

Once the classical world’s dominant port, by the early 19th century the city founded by Alexander the Great was seemingly in terminal decline. But the energy and vision of the Ottoman governor Muhammad Ali restored its fortunes and, ultimately, set Egypt on the path to independence, as Philip Mansel explains.

Britain's connections with Chile date from her War of Independence, and were powerfully re-inforced by a Victorian company-promoter in the City of London.