History of the British national debt History of the British national debt The history of the British national debt can be traced back to the reign of William III, who engaged a syndicate of City traders and merchants to offer for sale an issue of government debt, which evolved into the Bank of England. In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British government debt reached a peak of £1 billion (that was more than 200% of GDP). At the beginning of the 20th century the national debt had been gradually reduced to around 30 percent of GDP. However, during World War I the British
Bank of British Columbia Bank of British Columbia There have been two British Columbian/Canadian banks with the name Bank of British Columbia. The first was established by Royal Charter in 1862, with its head office in London. Between 1862 and 1871 it issued dollar banknotes. By 1885 it had branches in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon (est. 1866), Victoria, British Columbia (est. 1862) and New Westminster (est. 1862). In 1889 it established a branch in Seattle. In 1901 it merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce. At the time of the merger it had branches in Vancouver (est. 1886), Victoria, Kamloops, Nanaimo, Nelson, New Westminster,