History of the British national debt both government borrowing and the national debt have risen dramatically, reaching around 70% of GDP by the end of 2012. The origins of the British national debt can be found during the reign of William III, who engaged a syndicate of City traders and merchants to offer for sale an issue of government debt. This syndicate soon evolved into the Bank of England, eventually financing the wars of the Duke of Marlborough and later Imperial conquests. The establishment of the bank was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, in 1694, to the plan which had been proposed by
Humphry Morice (Governor of the Bank of England) extent of his defalcations was revealed: he had not only swindled the Bank, but abstracted money from a trust fund left for his daughters by their maternal uncle, and still left debts of nearly £150,000. The Bank took action against his widow to attempt to recover its losses, ultimately settling for £12,000 after forty-three years of litigation. Humphry Morice (Governor of the Bank of England) Humphry Morice (c.1671 – 16 November 1731) was a British merchant, MP and Governor of the Bank of England. He inherited his father's trading business around the age of eighteen, and learned finance and speculation