Editing Nicholas Barbon

{{short description|English economist, physician, life insurance pioneer}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Nicholas Barbon
| image       = Nicholas Barbon.jpg
| alt         = 
| caption     = Portrait of Nicholas Barbon.
| birth_date  = {{circa}} 1640
| birth_place = London
| death_date  = {{circa}} 1698
| death_place = [[Osterley Park|Osterley House]], [[Middlesex]]
| other_names = {{unbulleted list|Nicholas Barebon|Nicholas Barebone|If-Jesus-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned|Unless-Jesus-Christ-had-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned}}
| known_for   = {{flatlist|
* [[Property insurance|Fire insurance]]
* [[property development]]
* [[Economics|economic theory]]
* speculation
* middle name
}}
| occupation  = {{flatlist|
* Physician
* economist
* builder
}}
}}
{{Economics sidebar}}
'''Nicholas Barbon''' ({{circa}} 1640 – {{circa}} 1698) was an English [[economist]], physician, and [[Speculation|financial speculator]].  Historians of [[mercantilism]] consider him to be one of the first proponents of the [[free market]].

In the aftermath of the [[Great Fire of London]], he became an active London [[property developer]] and helped to pioneer [[Property insurance|fire insurance]] and mortgages as a means of financing such developments.

==Early life==
Nicholas Barbon was born in London in either 1637<ref name="Letwin49"/> or 1640.<ref name="Ash254"/><ref name="ODNB-Nicholas">{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1334 |title=Barbon, Nicholas|last=Sheldon|first=R. D.|date=September 2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/1334|volume=1|accessdate=16 February 2010}}</ref> He was the eldest son of [[Praise-God Barebone]] (or Barbon), the namesake of [[Barebone's Parliament]] of 1653, the predecessor of [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s [[The Protectorate|Protectorate]]. Praise-God Barebone was a [[Fifth Monarchists|Fifth Monarchist]] who purportedly gave Nicholas the baptismal name "'''If-Jesus-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned'''," an example of a [[Hortative|hortatory]] name, a type of [[virtue name]] that was common among some [[English Dissenters|Dissenting]] families in 17th-century England.<ref name="Ash254">{{Harvnb|Ash|2008|p=254.}}</ref> Conflicting sources claim the name "Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned" was given to Nicholas' father<ref name="Letwin48"/> or to his uncle<ref>Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, [https://books.google.com/books?id=5OEaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA239 ''The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature''], 1816. Vol. 11, Article IV "The History and Antiquity of Dissenting Churches, etc."</ref> and Nicholas' hortatory name was supposedly a variant on this name. 

Barbon became a religious [[Separatism#Religious|separatist]] with [[Millenarianism|Millenarianist]] beliefs, including fervent advocacy of [[infant baptism]] in particular.<ref name="Letwin49">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=49.}}</ref><ref name="ODNB-PraiseGod">{{cite ODNB|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1335|title=Oxford DNB article: Barbon (Barebone), Praisegod|last=Wright|first=Stephen|date=September 2004|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/1335|accessdate=16 February 2010}}</ref> He studied medicine at the Universities of [[Leiden University|Leiden]] and [[Utrecht University|Utrecht]] in the [[Netherlands]], and received his [[Doctor of Medicine]] qualification from the latter in 1661. Three years later, he became an honorary fellow of the [[Royal College of Physicians]] in London.<ref name="Letwin49"/><ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/>

==Property development==
He soon turned from the medical profession to the building trade, which suddenly became important in 1666 when the [[Great Fire of London]] devastated most of the [[City of London]] which at the time was separated from [[Westminster]], the seat of Britain's government, by two miles of countryside, dotted with grand mansions.  Within a few years he was "the most prominent London builder of his age".<ref name="Letwin49"/> He built houses streets at a time, often around squares, and his developments were mostly to the west of the City of London, where land was plentiful.

Barbon was responsible for joining the city to the seat of government at Westminster for the first time as a result of developments along the [[Strand, London|Strand]], [[Bloomsbury]], [[St Giles]] and [[Holborn]].<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Letwin50–51">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|pp=50–51.}}</ref> Barbon did this despite long-established restrictions on new buildings associated with various [[Act of Parliament|Acts of Parliament]] and royal declarations in the late 16th century: he often simply disregarded legal and local objections, demolished existing buildings without permission and rebuilt speculatively in search of a quick profit.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Letwin50–51"/>

On 11 June 1684, Barbon's expansionary speculation brought him and his building tradesmen into conflict with lawyers based at [[Gray's Inn]]. Barbon started his largest project yet,<ref name="Letwin51">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=51.}}</ref> the redevelopment of [[Red Lion Square]], and environs in Holborn without being authorised to do so. The Gray's Inn lawyers, [[Inns of Court]] adjacent saw their rural outlooks jeopardised, and started physical fist fights with Barbon's workmen, but the developer and his men fought back. The lawyers subsequently obtained warrants for his arrest but Barbon had these set aside and the development scheme was completed.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/> Another setback came when houses he had built at [[Mincing Lane]] collapsed because of inadequate foundations.<ref name="Letwin49"/><ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/>

"He was unique in the  unscrupulousness and brazenness of his business tactics" and his contemporary [[Roger North (biographer)|Roger North]], who studied his dealings and interviewed him on the subject, called him "an exquisite mob master" in recognition of his ability to manipulate people to carry out his schemes.<ref>The Birth of Modern London: The Development and Design of the City 1660-1720
By Elizabeth McKellar, pp.43,45 [https://books.google.com/books?id=knRh5EOwaOEC&dq=samuel+vincent+buckenham+norfolk&pg=PA51]</ref><ref name="Ash254"/><ref name="Letwin48">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=48.}}</ref>

==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"/>

==Economic theory==
[[File:Barbon - Discourse of trade, 1905 - 5845734.tif |thumb|''Discourse of trade'', 1690]]
During the later part of his life, Nicholas Barbon wrote extensively on [[Economics|economic theory]].  His pamphlets and books on [[political economy]] are considered important because of their innovative views on money, trade (especially [[free trade]]) and [[supply and demand]].<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Letwin61">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=61.}}</ref> His works, especially ''A Discourse of Trade'' (written in 1690), influenced and drew praise from 20th-century economists such as [[John Maynard Keynes]] (in ''[[The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money]]'')<ref name="JHEH-Abstract">{{cite journal|last=Ullmer|first=James H.|date=March 2007|title=The Macroeconomic thought of Nicholas Barbon|journal=Journal of the History of Economic Thought|volume=29|issue=1|pages=101–116|doi= 10.1080/10427710601178336|s2cid=154339143 }}</ref> and [[Joseph Schumpeter]].<ref name="Letwin61"/> Karl Marx cites his work, notably ''A Discourse on Coining the New Money Lighter'' of (1696) in ''Das Capital''.<ref>pp 125-7 in the 1970 Penguin edition</ref> He was one of several late 17th-century economic, social and political theorists with a medical education background; contemporaries included [[Benjamin Worsley]], [[Hugh Chamberlen]], [[William Petty]] and [[John Locke]].<ref name="Letwin48–49">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|pp=48–49.}}</ref>

His early writings sought to explain and advertise his insurance and mortgage schemes and his building developments; for example, in his ''Apology for the Builder: or a Discourse showing the Cause and Effects of the Increase of Building'' of 1685—written in the aftermath of his fight with the lawyers of Gray's Inn—Barbon justified (anonymously) his expansionary building policy by describing the benefits it would bring to London and Britain as a whole.<ref name="Letwin55">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=55.}}</ref> His ''A Discourse of Trade'', written five years later, was much more significant, however. As a broad explanation of his economic and political views, it brought together all of his ideas and became the basis for his reputation as an economic theorist.<ref name="Letwin56">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=56.}}</ref>

Barbon observed the power of fashion and luxury goods to enhance trade.  Fashion demanded the replacement of goods before they had worn out; he believed this directed people towards the continuous purchasing of goods, which therefore created constant demand.  These views were contrary to standard moral values of the time, influenced by the government and the [[Church of England|church]]. He was one of the earliest writers to draw this distinction between the moral and economic aspects of purchasing.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Letwin63">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=63.}}</ref>

His views on [[interest]] were praised by [[Joseph Schumpeter]].  Barbon described as a "mistake" the standard view that interest is a monetary value, arguing that because money is typically borrowed to buy assets (goods and stock), the interest that is charged on the loan is a type of [[renting|rent]]—"a payment for the use of goods".<ref name="Letwin61"/> From this, Schumpeter extrapolated the argument that just as rent is the price paid for the use of what he called "unwrought stock, or the ''natural agents'' of [economic] production", interest is the price paid for "wrought stock—the ''produced'' [[Factors of production|means of production]]".<ref name="Letwin62–63">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|pp=62–63.}}</ref>

One of the main arguments in ''A Discourse of Trade''<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/> was that money did not have enough [[Intrinsic theory of value|intrinsic value]] to justify a government's hoarding of it; policies intended to help accumulate supposedly "valuable" commodities such as silver and gold were not appropriate, because the laws of [[supply and demand]] were the main determiner of their value.<ref name="Letwin63"/> Such criticism of [[mercantilism]]—the view that a country's prosperity can be measured by its stock of [[bullion]]—helped to lay the foundation for [[classical economics]], and was unusual at the time. Along with John Locke, with whom he debated his theories, Barbon was one of the first theorists to argue that money's value was principally symbolic and that its main function was to assist trade.  These views were expanded upon in his 1696 pamphlet, ''A Discourse Concerning Coining the New Money Lighter''.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref name="Letwin63–64">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|pp=63–64.}}</ref>

Barbon was influenced by [[populationism]]; he identified a country's wealth with its population. He also advocated the use of [[paper money|paper]] and [[credit money]], and postulated the reduction of [[interest rates]], which he thought impeded the growth in manufacturing and trade.<ref name="Letwin63"/><ref name="Letwin60">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=60.}}</ref> He discussed these issues in his 1696 pamphlet, which also considered the effects of the [[Great Recoinage of 1696|Recoinage of that year]], in which the [[Royal Mint]] recalled large quantities of silver coins, melted them down and reminted them, resulting in a temporary fall in the supply of money.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/>

Despite the importance of some of his theories, Barbon's work (especially ''A Discourse of Trade'') has been criticised for an excess of "definition and classification" instead of analysis and a disjointed style which lacked rigour.<ref name="Letwin48"/><ref name="Letwin57">{{Harvnb|Letwin|2003|p=57.}}</ref> This has been attributed to the early period in which he wrote, when economic thought was not yet fully developed.<ref name="JHEH-Abstract"/>

==Later life and death==
Barbon built a house for himself and his business interests in Crane Court, off [[Fleet Street]], but later moved to [[Osterley Park|Osterley House]], a large 16th-century [[mansion]] west of London.

By the time of his death, Barbon had built or financed developments to the value of £200,000 (£{{Formatprice|{{Inflation|UK|200000|1698|r=-3}}|0}} as of {{CURRENTISOYEAR}}){{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} according to Sir [[John Lowther, 1st Viscount Lonsdale]].<ref name="Letwin51"/>

He died at Osterley in 1698 or 1699.  His will was written in May 1698 and his executors received [[probate]] on 6 February 1699.<ref name="ODNB-Nicholas"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=850340|title=Will of Nicholas Barbon of Osterley, Middlesex|work=DocumentsOnline|publisher=[[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]]|format=fee usually required to view pdf of probate copy of will|access-date=17 February 2010}}</ref>

== Memorial ==
Barbon Close, opposite [[Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital]] in central London, is named after him, as is Barbon Alley off Devonshire Square.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Inwood |first1=Stephen |title=Historic London: An Explorer's Guide |date=2008 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-0-230-70598-2 |page=136}}</ref>

==Works==
*''[https://books.google.com/books?id=yJaLxwEACAAJ A Discourse Shewing the Great Advantages that New-buildings and the Enlarging of Towns and Cities do Bring to a Nation]'' (1678)
*''[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A30884.0001.001?view=toc A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country, Giving an Account of the Two Insurance - Offices; the Fire-Office & Friendly-Society]'' (1684)
*''[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A30880.0001.001?view=toc Apology for the Builder; or a Discourse showing the Cause and Effects of the Increase of Building]'' (1685)
*''[https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/barbon/trade.htm A Discourse of Trade]''  (1690)
*''[https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/barbon/barbon.html An Answer to Paper Entituled, Reasons against Reducing Interest to Four per Cent]'' (1694)
*''[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A30882.0001.001?view=toc A Discourse Concerning Coining the New Money Lighter]'' (1696)

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

==References==
*{{cite book|last=Ash|first=Russell|title=Potty, Fartwell and Knob: Extraordinary but True Names of British People|publisher=Headline Publishing Group|location=London|year=2008|isbn=978-0-7553-1655-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/pottyfartwellkno0000ashr}}
*{{cite book|last=Dickson|first=P.G.M.|title=The Sun Insurance Office 1710–1960: The History of Two and a half Centuries of British Insurance|url=https://archive.org/details/suninsuranceoffi0000dick|url-access=registration|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|location=Oxford|year=1960}}
*{{cite book|last=Letwin|first=William|title=Origins of Scientific Economics: English Economic Thought, 1660–1776|publisher=[[Routledge]]|location=Abingdon|year=2003|orig-year=1963|series=Routledge Library Editions|volume=9|isbn=978-0-415-31329-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sN0Xu76JSyUC&pg=PA48}}
*{{cite book|last=Porter|first=Roy|author-link=Roy Porter|title=London: A Social History|year=1998|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|isbn=978-0-674-53839-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DyZfYaLXsuUC&q=london+a+social+history&pg=PR13}}

==External links==
*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Barbon, Nicholas}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-par|en}}
{{s-bef|before=[[John Alford (MP)|John Alford]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=Member of Parliament for [[Bramber (UK Parliament constituency)|Bramber]]<br /><small>with [[John Radcliffe (physician)|John Radcliffe]] 1690&ndash;1695<br />[[William Stringer]] 1695&ndash;1698</small>|years=1690&ndash;1698}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Sir Henry Furnese, 1st Baronet|Sir Henry Furnese]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbon, Nicholas}}
[[Category:1640s births]]
[[Category:1690s deaths]]
[[Category:17th-century English economists]]
[[Category:Medical doctors from London]]
[[Category:Utrecht University alumni]]
[[Category:17th-century English medical doctors]]
[[Category:17th-century English politicians]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from London]]

[[Category:Year of birth uncertain]]
[[Category:Year of death uncertain]]