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 England club Bank of England club The Bank of England club is a nickname in English association football for a football club which has a strong financial backing. It was used to refer to Arsenal F.C. in the 1930s as well as in recent times for being the last of the Premier League's Big Four clubs to be owned primarily by English investors. The name "Bank of England club" or "Bank of England team" caught after the record-breaking spending of Arsenal in the 1920s and 1930s. Bernard Joy recalled that people "sneered at the 'Bank of England' methods of team building" after