Chamber of commerce 1599 in Marseille, France. Another official chamber of commerce would follow 65 years later, probably in Bruges, then part of the Spanish Netherlands. The world's oldest English-speaking chamber of commerce is the Jersey Chamber founded in February 1768, the same year the New York City Chamber was founded, The oldest known existing chamber in the English-speaking world with continuous records, the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, was founded in 1783. However, Hull Chamber of Commerce is the UK's oldest, followed by those of Leeds and of Belfast in present day Northern Ireland. As a non-governmental institution, a chamber of commerce has
Dublin Chamber of Commerce the merchant guild system which left an opening for bodies which advocated free trade. Much of the focus of the Chamber in its early years was on abolishing impositions and opposing restrictions on export trade. The creation of Dublin Chamber led to the formation of other chambers of commerce around Ireland, including Waterford (1787), Londonderry (1790), Limerick (1807) and Cork (1814). By 1819 there were 19 chambers of commerce operating in Britain and Ireland - a figure which rose to more than 90 by 1900. The first British federation, the Association of Chambers of Commerce, began in 1860 and included