Editing Nicholas Barbon (section)

==Insurance and mortgages==
At the same time, Barbon took an interest in the development of insurance and the banking industry, and helped to pioneer both.<ref name="Letwin51"/> In 1680–81, with 11 associates, he founded an "Insurance Office for Houses" which offered fire insurance for up to 5,000 households in London.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Dickson7">{{Harvnb|Dickson|1960|p=7.}}</ref> Fires were a major danger in London at the time: the Great Fire destroyed more than 13,000 houses and displaced about 100,000 people,<ref name="Porter87–88">{{Harvnb|Porter|1998|pp=87–88.}}</ref> and another conflagration in 1678 damaged the [[Middle Temple]], one of the Inns of Court.<ref name="Letwin49"/> In 1690, together with [[John Asgill]], he founded the National Land Bank.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/> This was Britain's first [[land banking|land bank]]—a financial institution which issued loans in the form of [[Mortgage loan|mortgages]] against real estate.

These were popular with landowners because they could now raise money against the value of their main asset.<ref name="Letwin54">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=54.}}</ref> The bank was moderately successful, and even threatened to usurp the [[Bank of England]] in 1696. The government budget deficit had grown to an unsustainable level; Barbon merged the National Land Bank with another institution (founded by [[John Briscoe (financier)|John Briscoe]]) to form Land Bank United, and offered the government a £2 million loan (£{{Formatprice|{{Inflation|UK|2000000|1696|r=-3}}|0}} as of {{CURRENTISOYEAR}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} The scheme foundered when Barbon and Briscoe could not raise enough money, and Land Bank United was demerged.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Letwin54"/>

Barbon was also active in other fields during the 1690s. Largely in order to take advantage of [[Parliamentary privilege]] and thus gain immunity from prosecution by his creditors<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/> he bought a number of [[burgage]]s<ref>[[History of Parliament]] biography [http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1690-1715/member/barbon-nicholas-1637-98]</ref> in the [[rotten borough]] of [[Bramber (UK Parliament constituency)|Bramber]] in Sussex, which enabled him to be elected one of its [[Member of Parliament|Members of Parliament]] in 1690 and 1695. Another project involved trying to pump drinking water from the [[River Thames]], to be piped to his new building developments. He patented a design in 1694, and tried to sell pumping rights alongside fire insurance contracts.<ref name="Letwin54"/>