Mervyn King, Baron King of Lothbury in 1990 as a non-executive director, and became the chief economist in 1991. In 1998, he became a deputy governor of the bank and a member of the Group of Thirty. King was appointed as Governor of the Bank of England in 2003, succeeding Edward George. Most notably, he oversaw the bank during the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Great Recession. King retired from his office as governor in June 2013, and was succeeded by Mark Carney. He was appointed a life peer and entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher in July 2013. Since September 2014 he
Edward George, Baron George coming to power the Bank was given independence in setting UK interest rates by Gordon Brown, the incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was succeeded as Governor of the Bank of England in July 2003 by Mervyn King. George attracted controversy in 1998 when he was widely reported to have made a statement to London newspaper executives implying that unemployment in the north of England was a price worth paying to preserve affluence in the south of the country. He later claimed that his remarks had been misconstrued. George served as a Governor of his former school, Dulwich College, between