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![]() Many goldsmiths developed strong connections with the Crown, fashioning precious ornaments for the royal family and serving in senior positions at the Mint. Goldsmiths were, by contrast, a group of craftsmen whose position was entrenched during the later 16th century by the sudden increase in gold supplies consequent upon the dissolution of the monasteries during the 1530s. In this role they served the landed gentry as financial intermediaries, although their fortunes and activity declined from the 1660s as the volume of land transactions diminished. Most specialised in conveyancing but a few, in managing clients’ estates and trusts, developed money broking functions. Scriveners or scribes were commonly employed to copy financial and legal documents. Most early banking developments were concentrated in London, due to the importance of England’s capital in raising and servicing government finance and in international trade. The profession of banking emerged at this time from two separate and quite distinct traditions – those of money scrivening and goldsmithing. He was one of a score of men who in the middle years of the 17th century laid the foundations of the modern banking system. He was one of the earliest goldsmiths to make banking his primary trade, and by the late 1650s was a prominent banker. Bankerįrom 1653 Edward Backwell traded on his own account as a goldsmith-banker in Cheapside, moving in the following year to premises at the sign of the Unicorn in Lombard Street. Edward Backwell finished his apprenticeship with Vyner in 1651, when he became free of the Goldsmiths’ Company. Vyner was one of the first goldsmiths to diversify into the provision of financial services, and was involved in financing the Cromwellian government. In 1635 he was apprenticed to Thomas Vyner, a prominent London goldsmith. Edward Backwell was born in around 1618, the son of Barnaby Backwell, a yeoman of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. ![]()
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