The world's most historic coffee houses - Espresso Coffee - Quora The world's most historic coffee houses Most of today’s espresso coffee drinkers may think that the cafe or coffee house began in their generation and for a large percentage of them – with the advent of the Starbucks global franchise system. This post seeks out the historic coffee houses, paying particular attention to those that have either played a significant role in our society or have stood the test of time and remain trading today ... some 200 years after their establishment. Introduction The world’s first recorded historic coffee house, Kiva Han, was reputedly opened in Constantinople (Istanbul). Shemsi of Damascus and Hekem of Aleppo, are generally acknowledged as our first recorded coffee house proprietors having opened one in Talchtacalah, Constantinople in 1555. The coffee house is known by different named being: al-maqhah in Arabic, qahveh-khaneh in Persian or Kahvehane or kıraathane in Turkish, Kafano in the old state of Yugoslavia, café in French/Portuguese, cafetería in Spanish, caffè in Italian and Kaffeehaus in German.

Since the 15th century, the coffee house was largely a center of social interaction and traditionally a place where men would assemble to drink coffee and entertain themselves with conversation, music, reading and playing chess History of Coffee. Coffee houses have been given various names at times during its long history beginning with the early Ottoman description of; ‘Schools of Wisdom’ (A meeting places of men of arts and literature), then ‘Penny Universities’ in England (They became popular forums for the learned and the not-so-learned to discuss all manner of topics including politics and current affairs and a penny was the price of a cup of coffee) 'Seminaries of Sedition’ in England (A view held by the authorities who saw them as anti-social and ordered them closed in 1675 due to The Women’s Petition Against Coffee. From 1663 the coffee house in England had to be licensed.) and ‘KaffeeKlatsch’ in Germany (The derogatory term originally coined to describe a women’s gossip session at afternoon coffee.

It has since been broadened to mean relaxed conversation in general) Following its establishment in Istanbul, this new place of social gathering found its way to Europe in the 17th century and then on to the world leading us to our present day adaptations with the likes of Starbucks. While many of the significant and historic coffee houses of the past have since disappeared, a few are still with us and continue to serve patrons today. Here is a world roundup of some of the significant ones that have survived and some that have not. Italian Coffee House Baratti & Milano Caffe (still trading) is one of Turin’s most beautiful early Italian coffee house that was founded as a cafeteria in 1858 by Ferdinando Baratti and Edoardo Milano with the name “Fornitore della Real Casa” (Supplier of the Royal House).

In 1875 it moved to its present location between the Piazza del Castello and the Galleria Subalpina, an area used for part of the infamous Austin Mini car chase scene in the original 1969 production of the film ‘The Italian Job’ Caffe Florian (still trading) is the most famous Italian coffee house still operating on the Piazza San Marco in the shadow of the Campanile, the famous bell tower of Venice, Italy. It was opened by Floriano Francesconi on 29 December 1720 under the arcades of the Procurative Nuove using the name “Venezia Trionfante” (‘Triumphant Venice’) but was later renamed in honour of its founder Floriano Francesconi. It is a prime contender for the world’s longest continuing coffee house with its 287 years of coffee service to its Venetian, Italian and international patrons and takes its place amongst the city’s chief symbols. Much of the paintings, wood carvings, high ornate mirrors, cosy booths and naked woods come from the refurbishments done in 1859.

It is also home to the Venice Biennale, an exhibition of contemporary art that has been running since 1893. Famous patrons included Marcel Proust, Charles Dickens and the Venice born womanizer Giovanni Giacomo Casanova. Pedrocchi Café (still trading) is a famous neo-classical Italian coffee house located in Padua that was started by Franceso Pedrochin in 1760. The Pedrocchi Café is one of the biggest coffee houses in the world. Its operates in a magnificent 19th century building in the centre of Padua, Italy. Its rooms are decorated in various styles and show the great ecleptism of Giuseppe Jappelli, the famous architect who project managed the building. The coffee house is historically known for having been the centre of the 1848 riots in Padua as well as for having been the meeting point of great artists such as the French novelist Stendhal, the English poet Lord Byron, the Italian Nobel prize winner Dario Fo. Caffe Greco (Antico Caffe’ Greco – Still trading) is one of Europe’s first coffee houses not far from the Spanish Steps.

It was opened on 84 Via dei Condotti in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome Italy in 1760 by a Greek, Nicola della Maddalena. Still trading today and boasting famous past patrons including; Keats, Shelley, Lord Byron, Goethe, Ricard Wagner, Franz Liszt along with the infamous King Ludwi. It is the oldest and acclaimed as the most elegant café in Rome. The rooms of this café ooze with history displaying the signatures of the many former and famous patrons who frequented the place. Apart from those listed above other who’s who have sipped coffee here include Buffalo Bill, Felix Mendelssohn, Mark Twain, Orson Wells, the composer Rossini and Hans Christian Andersen who is said to have lived on the upper levels. Even Goethe enjoyed his coffee here when travelling through Italy in 1786. It remains open today serving the writers, politicians, artists and notable people in Rome that have made it their home. It was the influential pre-Surrealist Greek-Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico who suggested that this is the coffee house where you ‘sit and await the end’. English coffee house.

Edward Lloyd’ Coffee House was opened by Edward Lloyd near the Thames on Tower Street in London in 1685. The coffee house was “spacious, well built and inhabited by able tradesmen” according to a contemporary publication. Later in 1691 it was transferred to 16 Lombard Street which was very close to the centre of English maritime trade. It was from this coffee house that Edward Lloyd launched his “Lloyd’s List” in 1696 which was filled with information on ship arrivals and departures and included some intelligence on conditions abroad and at sea. This list was eventually enlarged to provide daily news on stock prices, foreign markets, and high-water times at London Bridge and reports of accidents and sinkings. In 1771, seventy-nine of the underwriters who did business at Lloyd’s subscribed £100 each and joined together in the Society of Lloyd’s, an unincorporated group of individual entrepreneurs operating under a self-regulated code of behaviour. These were the original Members of Lloyd’s; later, members came to be known as “Names.” It was from this coffee house that Lloyd’ s of London was established which eventually became the largest insurance company of the world.

Turk’s Head Coffee House was a name used by many coffee houses at the height of coffee’s popularity in London in the 18th century. Possibility the most famous one of these traded in the Strand in London from 1763 to 1783. It derived its fame as the gathering place for such literary figures as Samuel Johnson, his biographer Boswell, Oliver Goldsmith, the actor David Garrick, Edmund Burke, and Sir Joshua Reynolds the painter. Other members of the circle were Thomas Percy, historian Edward Gibbon, and economist Adam Smith. St. Michael’s Alley Coffee House is England’s first coffee house and was opened in Cornhill London in 1652. It is still unclear to this day wether it was opened by a Mr. Bowman or Pasqua Rosee although the weight of evidence suggests Pasqua Rosee. It is also uncertain as to wether he was a native of Armenia, a Greek from the Republic of Ragusa or from Ottoman Smyrna, a port in Western Turkey. What is clear is that he was a man-servant or employee to a Turkish merchant trader (one who dealt in coffee and other such luxury items) named Daniel Edwards.

Some researchers also claim that Pasqua went into business with a coachman who was a relative of Mr. Edwards. The coffee house is famous for being the first known coffee advertising or prospectus in England with the original document, ‘The Virtue of the Coffee Drink’, still being on display in the British Museum. Queen’s Lane Coffee House (still trading) is a historic coffee house dating from 1654 located on Queen’s Lane which is a historic street in central Oxford, England. It was named after Queen’s College located to the south and west and is close to St. Edmund Hall one of the smallest colleges in Oxford. It is one of the oldest coffee houses in England and is the oldest still trading coffee house in Oxford, England. It is a popular coffee house with both Oxford University students and tourists. Will’s Coffee House was established by William Urwin in Russell Street, Covent Garden at the end of Bow Street London in 1660. Starting as Red Cow, then The Rose and finally Will’s, it achieved a fame when the London’s poets, patrons and critics made it their home.

John Dryden was the literati genius and poet who made this coffee house the resort of the wits of his time and it was for a long time the open market for libels and lampoons his stage for thirty years. Dryden shaped the public taste for thirty years and served as an inspiration to poets and writers of prose by passing judgment on the latest poem or play. John Dryden had his own seat at Wills, by the fireplace in winter and by the window in summer. So great was Dryden’s reputation, and with it the reputation of Will’s, that the most famous of England’s men of letters, including Samuel Pepys, Congreve, Pope and Wycherly frequented the coffee house earning Will’s the title ”The Wit’s Coffee House”; The death of Dryden saw the demise of Will’s and about 1712 the custom was transferred by Joseph Addison to Batton’s coffee house on the opposite side of the street. Jonathan’s Coffee House was founded by Jonathan Miles, in Exchange Alley, around 1680.

In its early years it was known more for its revolutionaries than for its businessmen which is why in 1696, several patrons were implicated in a plot to assassinate William III, and it was thought to be associated with the Popish Plots. In 1698, it was used by John Castaing to post the prices of stocks and commodities which was the first evidence of systematic exchange of securities in London, England. That year, other dealers expelled from the Royal Exchange for rowdiness migrated to Jonathan’s. The coffee house was the centre for the speculations during the great “South Seas bubble” days of 1719-1720, and in 1745, during the panic caused by the Young Pretender’s march on London, men won and lost fortunes in speculations on the rebellion’s success. In 1761 a club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed to trade stocks. The club built its own building in 1773 in Sweeting’s Alley, which was dubbed the New Jonathan’s, but was later renamed the London Stock Exchange.

The coffee house building continued to serve as the scene of a lottery office after the departure of the jobbers in 1773 until it was ultimately destroyed by fire in 1778. Vienna Coffee House. House under The Blue Bottle Coffee House (‘Hof zur Blauen Flasche ‘) was one of the first and most notable coffee houses in Vienna and was opened at Schlossergassl near the cathedral in 1686 by Georg Franz Kolschitzky from Poland. Tradition has it that Kolschitzky played a part in freeing the besieged city of Vienna by infiltrating the Turkish lines and getting Poland’s King Sobiesky to send an army to free Vienna. The fleeing Turks left a vast number of sacks of brown beans that nobody wanted. Kolschitzky knew their use and value from his travels to Turkey and so claimed them as his booty. Kulczycki’s helped to popularize coffee in Austria and his coffee house soon became one of the most popular places in town. It is noted that Kulczycki served his mortar-ground coffee wearing a Turkish attire, which added to the exotic authenticity of his coffee brew.

Another of his innovations was to serve coffee with milk which was a serving method unknown to the Turks or Austrians at that time. Vienna – Blue Bottle French Coffee House Cafe Le Procope (still trading) is acknowledged as the first true coffee house and the oldest restaurant in Paris and located right at the heart of the famous Quartier Latin. It was opened in 1686 by Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, a former lemonade vendor, on a street then known then as rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The cafe faces the Theatre Francais, where it drew a clientele of artists and actors and so it became known as the “theatrical” coffee house although only for gentlemen. Today the coffee house sits on the now named rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. Throughout the eighteenth century the Procope became the meeting place of the intellectual establishment. The Phrygian cap, a symbol of Liberty, was first displayed at the Procope and became the meeting place of revolutionaries including the Cordeliers, Robespierre, Danton, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Marat.

Alexander von Humboldt and George Sand were among the famous 19th-century regulars. It holds some claim to be the birthplace of the Encyclopédie, the first modern encyclopedia. Closing its doors briefly in the late 1800’s it remains today as an historical landmark of Paris. USA Coffee House City Tavern (Merchant’s Coffee House) City Tavern or Merchants Coffee House is the last of the celebrated coffee houses built in Philadelphia in 1773 and patterned after the best London coffee houses. Daniel Smith was the first proprietor and for more than a quarter of a century was the principal gathering place of the city. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other leaders of public were more or less frequent visitors when in Philadelphia. The exact date when the City tavern became the Merchants coffee house is unknown. The Old Tontine Coffee House was located at the northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets. The Tontine Coffee house is where the NY Stock Exchange was organized.

The City Museum tells us “Some historians date the birth of the New York Stock Exchange to the issuance of bonds by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1790; others claim that the exchange came into existence on May 17, 1792, at the Merchants’ Coffee House at the southeast corner of Wall and Water Streets, when twenty-four stock brokers and merchants signed the “Buttonwood Agreement.” Café Reggio (still trading) a small coffee house in New York’s Greenwich Village, opened in 1927. It claims the title of “the original Cappuccino bar” because the owner Domenico Parisi imported and installed the first espresso machine in the United States. By the mid 50’s the Italian “La Pavoni” espresso machine, built in 1902, began offering espresso made the Italian way to a clientele including the Beats, Bob Dylan and the poet Joseph Brodsky. The original machine, an ornate brass-decorated beauty, still holds pride of place at Cafe Reggio’s today. London Stock Exchange History London Stock Exchange History The London Stock Exchange history is proof that from something small, a huge giant can be built.

It can trace its history back more than 300 years. Starting life in the coffee houses of 17th century London, the Exchange quickly grew to become the City’s most important financial institution. 1698 - John Castaing begins to issue 'at this Office in Jonathan’s Coffee-house' a list of stock and commodity prices called 'The Course of the Exchange and other things'. It is the earliest evidence of organised trading in marketable securities in London. 1698 - Stock dealers are expelled from the Royal Exchange for rowdiness and start to operate in the streets and coffee houses nearby, in particular in Jonathan’s Coffee House in Change Alley. 1720 - The wave of speculative fever known as the South Sea Bubble bursts. Details of this can be found in many investment books - especially those related to investor or crowd psychology. It makes for an instructive and entertaining read!! Without doubt, this has to be one of the most interesting times in London Stock Exchange history. 1761 - A group of 150 stock brokers and jobbers form a club at Jonathan's to buy and sell shares.

1773 - The brokers erect their own building in Sweeting’s Alley, with a dealing room on the ground floor and a coffee room above. The members soon name it the 'The Stock Exchange'. 1801 - On 3 March, the business reopens under a formal membership basis. On this date, the first regulated exchange comes into existence in London, and the modern Stock Exchange is born. Officially, London Stock Exchange history starts here! 1812 - The first codified rule book is created. 1836 - The first regional exchanges open in Manchester and Liverpool. 1854 - The Stock Exchange is rebuilt. 1876 - A new Deed of Settlement for the Stock Exchange comes into force. 1914 - The Great War means the Exchange market is closed from the end of July until the new year. 1923 - The Exchange receives its own Coat of Arms, with the motto 'Dictum Meum Pactum' (My Word is My Bond). For many decades, this phrase summed up the code of those working on or in the exchange. 1939 - The start of World War Two. The Exchange is closed for 6 days and reopens on 7 September.

The floor of the House closes for only one more day, in 1945 due to damage from a V2 rocket – trading then continues in the basement. 1972 - Her Majesty the Queen opens the Exchange's new 26-storey office block. 1973 - First female members admitted to the market. 1986 - Deregulation of the market, known as 'Big Bang': ownership of member firms by an outside corporation is allowed. All firms become broker/dealers able to operate in a dual capacity. Minimum scales of commission are abolished. Individual members cease to have voting rights. Trading moves from being conducted face-to-face on a market floor to being performed via computer and telephone from separate dealing rooms. The Exchange becomes a private limited company under the Companies Act 1985. 1991 - The governing Council of the Exchange is replaced with a Board of Directors drawn from the Exchange's executive, customer and user base. The trading name becomes '“The London Stock Exchange'. 1995 - AIM is launched – read about it on other pages of this site. 1997 - SETS (Stock Exchange Electronic Trading Service) is launched to bring greater speed and efficiency to the market.

The CREST settlement service is launched. 2000 - Shareholders vote to become a public limited company: London Stock Exchange plc. 2001 - London Stock Exchange plc lists on it's own Main Market in July. As you can see, the market's history has been one of growth and constant expansion and is a credit to the UK. To read more about the LSE, please visit: jonathan s coffee house : definition of jonathan s coffee house and synonyms of jonathan s coffee house (English) Jonathan's Coffee-House This article includes a list of references , related reading or external links , but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations . Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2011) Jonathan's Coffee-House in Change Alley ( Exchange Alley ) is famous as the original site of the London Stock Exchange . The Coffee-House was founded by Jonathan Miles, in Exchange Alley, around 1680. In 1696, several patrons were implicated in a plot to assassinate William III , and it was thought to be associated with the Popish Plots .

In 1698, it was used by John Castaing to post the prices of stocks and commodities, the first evidence of systematic exchange of securities in London, England . That year, other dealers expelled from the Royal Exchange for rowdiness migrated to Jonathan's (along with Garraway's Coffee-House ). It was the scene of a number of critical events in the history of share trading, including the South Sea Bubble and the panic of 1745. It was destroyed by fire in 1748, and rebuilt. In 1761 a club of 150 brokers and jobbers was formed to trade stocks. The club built its own building in 1773 in Sweeting's Alley , which was dubbed the New Jonathan's, but was renamed the Stock Exchange. The original Jonathan's served as the home of a lottery office after until it was destroyed by fire in 1778.

See also London's Financial Institutions: A Beginner's Guide | Londonist London's Financial Institutions: A Beginner's Guide By BethPH Last edited 58 months ago BethPH London's Financial Institutions: A Beginner's Guide Can’t tell the difference between your bankers and your brokers, or your swaps and your futures? Let’s take a look at the main players in the financial markets and their place in the City of London. London is one of the world’s three main financial centres – the other two being New York and Tokyo. It’s also the oldest centre, so there’s quite a bit of interesting history around the city (small c and large C). In fact, hardened London-dwellers will probably be familiar with more of it than they realise. London Stock Exchange The first Royal Exchange was founded in the 1560s by Thomas Gresham and opened by Queen Elizabeth I, but stockbrokers, even back then, were notoriously unmannerly and were banished to coffee shops to ply their trade, leaving the Exchange for respectable merchants. Jonathan’s Coffee House in Change Alley was one of the first of these unofficial trading venues, along with its successor, Garraway’s.

It performed much the same function as the London Stock Exchange does today; allowing companies to raise capital by selling shares in that company, now known as the equity market. Sadly, Gresham’s Royal Exchange was destroyed in the Great Fire and re-established three years later but with a new and (for the dodgier brokers) unwelcome innovation: regulation. Parliament introduced an act in 1697 which imposed fines on the ne’er-do-wells but they simply traded in the street instead. By the 19th century, a formal Stock Exchange had been established with a rule book and was pretty much an accepted part of London. The government at the time recognised the moneyspinning potential and used the Exchange to raise funds for the Napoleonic wars by getting investors to lend them money in return for interest payments on the loan and the promise of full repayment at the end of the loan period. This is what’s now called government debt and the reason why countries like Italy and Greece are in the news so much, usually accompanied by the word ‘default’. Basically, they are bad debtors and are unable to repay their loans.

Insurance Insurance is another integral part of London’s financial history yet is less well-reported than the stock market and banking. It also began with coffee, specifically in Lloyds Coffee House , but instead of rude stockbrokers, the building was frequented by sailors, merchants and ship owners seeking the shipping news. One of Lloyds less savoury specialities was insuring ships that engaged in the slave trade, at the time a huge multi-national business. Some estimates suggest British shipping carried around 3.4 million people into slavery. Lloyds is also the home of the Lutine Bell . Back in the day, it was rung twice if an overdue ship turned out to be safe and once if it had sunk. Nowadays, Lloyds insures a wide variety of things, including the limbs of the rich and famous. The British may not excel at international football but our insurance firms cover about 25% of the world's merchant ships. Banks, Brokers, Hedge Funds and People Banks come in three main flavours: central, retail and investment. Retail banks are where Joe Public have their personal bank accounts.

Investment banks generally work for themselves – they use their own and customers' money to buy and sell to make a profit, though the recent banking reforms will in future mean that retail customers' money can no longer be used. Some banks, such as HSBC or RBS do both retail and investment, but the two sides of the company are pretty much separate entities in the way they operate. A central bank is the daddy of banks – it's government-controlled and acts as a lender of last resort if a retail or investment bank is about to go bust. Except in the case of Lehman Brothers in 2008, that is. It also sets base interest rates. The Bank of England is the UK’s central bank while the Federal Reserve does the same thing in the US. Despite what we hear on the news, the financial industry doesn’t begin and end with banks, and not everyone in the sector is a banker (in the literal or rhyming slang sense). When you hear ‘bankers’ used as a term to describe people working in the industry, it usually means traders or executives. Traders account for a tiny percentage of a bank’s employees but are the ones who make much of the money.

Trading is a high-stress, high-pressure job and a trader's sole objective is to turn a profit for their employer who will be utterly ruthless in getting rid of them if they underperform. Executives are the people in charge, the strategy-makers and sometimes the public face of the bank. They also take the fall if things go pear-shaped – like the now ex-Sir Fred Goodwin formerly of RBS. Then there are the thousands of other employees who enable the whole enterprise to operate: the back office staff, the marketing people, the cleaners, the receptionists, the desktop support team, the project managers. Traders and execs are the A list celebs of the banking world and the others are the camera crew and key grip. They can’t function without each other but the former get all the money and fame. So who else is involved if it's not all done by bankers? Brokers are the firms who slip under the media radar, leaving banks in the firing line for whatever financial catastrophe has occurred. They exist as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. So Bank A will call Broker B and say they want to buy Greek government bonds (as if!).

Broker B will go off and find Bank C who just happens to have some of these bonds and if they agree on price, Broker B will take a commission for setting the whole thing up. Brokers also produce loads of research and analysis on the markets which they sell to other people. Brokers tend to be privately-owned, unlike banks who are answerable to shareholders, so although they’re covered by the same regulations, if a broker goes bankrupt it’s unlikely to cause much of a ripple outside the industry. Heard of Lehman Brothers? Of course you have. Heard of MF Global? No? The difference between them is that Lehman was a big investment bank which went under while MF Global was a big broker that went under. The latter was barely reported outside of the financial industry despite apparently having mislaid $1.2bn of its customers’ money. The former sparked an international financial crisis and started a backlash against the industry that is still going on four years later. Hedge funds are another major market participant , and they're the ones few have heard of.

Whereas banks and brokers are traditionally found in the Square Mile and, in the past 20 years or so, Canary Wharf, hedge funds are often based in the posh bits of London like Mayfair, where they keep a pretty low profile. They provide an opportunity to ‘hedge’ investment risk to pension funds, high net worth individuals (AKA the filthy rich) and other enormously wealthy institutions, in lots of different ways that are brain-meltingly difficult to describe. Every now and again, some financial institution will threaten to flounce from the UK over regulation or whatnot. The flounce threat is often responded to by the general public saying ‘go on then, see if we care, you bunch of bankers’. Here’s why we should care. Britain’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product, or the monetary value of all goods and services produced in a country) comprises agriculture (1.4%), industry (22.1%) and services (77.1%). By far the biggest contributor to the services bucket is finance and banking. The City’s contribution to the UK’s tax take last year was an estimated £63bn , which is 12.1% of the total UK tax take.

A one-off tax on bonus payments raised £3.4bn for the economy . Does this leave us over-exposed? Yes. Does this mean we should pander to the finance sector’s every demand? No. For an organisation such as HSBC which employs 8,000 people at its Canary Wharf HQ, upping sticks is no small matter. Banks also don’t exist in a vacuum – they require a tremendous amount of support from other industries such as IT, telephony, facilities management, news and financial data providers. The list is long, and the knowledge of their staff is highly specialised. Their contribution to the local economy is also important. Imagine London with over 300,000 fewer people spending money in it. Sure, the bars at Canary Wharf might be less crowded but that would be a fairly big loss in a wide range of industries from property to entertainment. So, that’s Londonist’s potted guide to the City and finance. In future weeks we’ll take a look at some of the markets within the financial industry, hopefully in a way that won’t send you to sleep or into a towering anti-capitalist rage.

See the whole series: Jonathan’s Coffee House : London Remembers, Aiming to capture all memorials in London Categories: Commerce , Community / Clubs , Food & Drink Founded by Jonathan Miles in Exchange Alley around 1680. In 1698 John Castaing posted a list of prices for stocks and commodities. And so traders who were expelled from the Royal Exchange used Jonathan's as a meeting place. It burnt down and was rebuilt in 1748. In 1773 the traders built the bigger 'New Jonathan's" in Sweeting's Alley (about where Royal Exchange Buildings meets Threadneedle Street now) but it soon became known as the Stock Exchange and evolved into the LSE that we have today. The original Jonathan's succumbed to the flames for a second and final time in 1778.

The internet in a cup | The Economist The internet in a cup Coffee fuelled the information exchanges of the 17th and 18th centuries Dec 18th 2003 Tweet WHERE do you go when you want to know the latest business news, follow commodity prices, keep up with political gossip, find out what others think of a new book, or stay abreast of the latest scientific and technological developments? Today, the answer is obvious: you log on to the internet. Three centuries ago, the answer was just as easy: you went to a coffee-house. There, for the price of a cup of coffee, you could read the latest pamphlets, catch up on news and gossip, attend scientific lectures, strike business deals, or chat with like-minded people about literature or politics. The coffee-houses that sprang up across Europe, starting around 1650, functioned as information exchanges for writers, politicians, businessmen and scientists. Like today's websites, weblogs and discussion boards, coffee-houses were lively and often unreliable sources of information that typically specialised in a particular topic or political viewpoint. They were outlets for a stream of newsletters, pamphlets, advertising free-sheets and broadsides.

Depending on the interests of their customers, some coffee-houses displayed commodity prices, share prices and shipping lists, whereas others provided foreign newsletters filled with coffee-house gossip from abroad. Rumours, news and gossip were also carried between coffee-houses by their patrons, and sometimes runners would flit from one coffee-house to another within a particular city to report major events such as the outbreak of a war or the death of a head of state. Coffee-houses were centres of scientific education, literary and philosophical speculation, commercial innovation and, sometimes, political fermentation. Collectively, Europe's interconnected web of coffee-houses formed the internet of the Enlightenment era. In this section Coffee-shop chains: Abuzz May 17th 2001 The great soberer Coffee, the drink that fuelled this network, originated in the highlands of Ethiopia, where its beans were originally chewed rather than infused for their invigorating effects. It spread into the Islamic world during the 15th century, where it was embraced as an alternative to alcohol, which was forbidden (officially, at least) to Muslims.

Coffee came to be regarded as the very antithesis of alcoholic drinks, sobering rather than intoxicating, stimulating mental activity and heightening perception rather than dulling the senses. This reputation accompanied coffee as it spread into western Europe during the 17th century, at first as a medicine, and then as a social drink in the Arab tradition. An anonymous poem published in London in 1674 denounced wine as the “sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape” that drowns “our Reason and our Souls”. Beer was condemned as “Foggy Ale” that “besieg'd our Brains”. Coffee, however, was heralded as ...that Grave and Wholesome Liquor, that heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker, Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad, and cheers the Spirits, without making Mad. The contrast between coffee and alcoholic drinks was reflected in the decor of the coffee-houses that began to appear in European cities, London in particular. They were adorned with bookshelves, mirrors, gilt-framed pictures and good furniture, in contrast to the rowdiness, gloom and squalor of taverns.

According to custom, social differences were left at the coffee-house door, the practice of drinking healths was banned, and anyone who started a quarrel had to atone for it by buying an order of coffee for all present. In short, coffee-houses were calm, sober and well-ordered establishments that promoted polite conversation and discussion. With a new rationalism abroad in the spheres of both philosophy and commerce, coffee was the ideal drink. Its popularity owed much to the growing middle class of information workers—clerks, merchants and businessmen—who did mental work in offices rather than performing physical labour in the open, and found that coffee sharpened their mental faculties. Such men were not rich enough to entertain lavishly at home, but could afford to spend a few pence a day on coffee. Coffee-houses provided a forum for education, debate and self-improvement.

They were nicknamed “penny universities” in a contemporary English verse which observed: “So great a Universitie, I think there ne'er was any; In which you may a Scholar be, for spending of a Penny.” “At the Café de Foy someone said that the king had taken a mistress...that she was a beautiful woman, the niece of the Duc de Noailles,” reads one report from the 1720s As with modern websites, the coffee-houses you went to depended on your interests, for each coffee-house attracted a particular clientele, usually by virtue of its location. Though coffee-houses were also popular in Paris, Venice and Amsterdam, this characteristic was particularly notable in London, where 82 coffee-houses had been set up by 1663, and more than 500 by 1700. Coffee-houses around the Royal Exchange were frequented by businessmen; those around St James's and Westminster by politicians; those near St Paul's Cathedral by clergymen and theologians.

Indeed, so closely were some coffee-houses associated with particular topics that the Tatler, a London newspaper founded in 1709, used the names of coffee-houses as subject headings for its articles. Its first issue declared: All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment shall be under the Article of White's Chocolate-house; Poetry, under that of Will's Coffee-house; Learning, under...Grecian; Foreign and Domestick News, you will have from St James's Coffee-house. Richard Steele, the Tatler's editor, gave its postal address as the Grecian coffee-house, which he used as his office. In the days before street numbering or regular postal services, it became a common practice to use a coffee-house as a mailing address. Regulars could pop in once or twice a day, hear the latest news, and check to see if any post awaited them. That said, most people frequented several coffee-houses, the choice of which reflected their range of interests. A merchant, for example, would generally oscillate between a financial coffee-house and one specialising in Baltic, West Indian or East Indian shipping.

The wide-ranging interests of Robert Hooke, a scientist and polymath, were reflected in his visits to around 60 coffee-houses during the 1670s. As the Tatler's categorisation suggests, the coffee-house most closely associated with science was the Grecian, the preferred coffee-house of the members of the Royal Society, Britain's pioneering scientific institution. On one occasion a group of scientists including Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley dissected a dolphin on the premises. Scientific lectures and experiments also took place in coffee-houses, such as the Marine, near St Paul's, which were frequented by sailors and navigators. Seamen and merchants realised that science could contribute to improvements in navigation, and hence to commercial success, whereas the scientists were keen to show the practical value of their work. It was in coffee-houses that commerce and new technology first became intertwined. The more literary-minded, meanwhile, congregated at Will's coffee-house in Covent Garden, where for three decades the poet John Dryden and his circle reviewed and discussed the latest poems and plays.

Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary on December 3rd 1663 that he had looked in at Will's and seen Dryden and “all the wits of the town” engaged in “very witty and pleasant discourse”. After Dryden's death many of the literatured shifted to Button's, which was frequented by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, among others. Pope's poem “The Rape of the Lock” was based on coffee-house gossip, and discussions in coffee-houses inspired a new, more colloquial and less ponderous prose style, conversational in tone and clearly visible in the journalism of the day. It was in coffee-houses that commerce and new technology first became intertwined Other coffee-houses were hotbeds of financial innovation and experimentation, producing new business models in the form of innumerable novel variations on insurance, lottery or joint-stock schemes. The best-known example was the coffee-house opened in the late 1680s by Edward Lloyd. It became a meeting-place for ships' captains, shipowners and merchants, who went to hear the latest maritime news and to attend auctions of ships and their cargoes.

Lloyd began to collect and summarise this information, supplemented with reports from a network of foreign correspondents, in the form of a regular newsletter, at first handwritten and later printed and sent to subscribers. Lloyd's thus became the natural meeting place for shipowners and the underwriters who insured their ships. Some underwriters began to rent booths at Lloyd's, and in 1771 a group of 79 of them collectively established the Society of Lloyd's, better known as Lloyd's of London. Similarly, two coffee-houses near London's Royal Exchange, Jonathan's and Garraway's, were frequented by stockbrokers and jobbers. Attempts to regulate the membership of Jonathan's, by charging an annual subscription and barring non-members, were successfully blocked by traders who opposed such exclusivity. So in 1773 a group of traders from Jonathan's broke away and decamped to a new building, the forerunner of the London Stock Exchange. Garraway's was a less reputable coffee-house, home to auctions of all kinds and much dodgy dealing, particularly during the South Sea Bubble of 1719-21.

It was said of Garraway's that no other establishment “fostered so great a quantity of dishonoured paper”. Far more controversial than the coffee-houses' functions as centres of scientific, literary and business exchange, however, was their potential as centres of political dissent. Coffee's reputation as a seditious beverage goes back at least as far as 1511, the date of the first known attempt to ban the consumption of coffee, in Mecca. Thereafter, many attempts were made to prohibit coffee and coffee-houses in the Muslim world. Some claimed it was intoxicating and therefore subject to the same religious prohibition as alcohol. Others claimed it was harmful to the health. But the real problem was the coffee-houses' alarming potential for facilitating political discussion and activity. This was the objection raised in a proclamation by Charles II of England in 1675. Coffee-houses, it declared, had produced very evil and dangerous effects...for that in such Houses...divers False, Malitious and Scandalous Reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of His Majestie's Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm.

The result was a public outcry, for coffee-houses had become central to commercial and political life. When it became clear that the proclamation would be widely ignored and the government's authority thus undermined, a further proclamation was issued, announcing that coffee-sellers would be allowed to stay in business for six months if they paid £500 and agreed to swear an oath of allegiance. But the fee and time limit were soon dropped in favour of vague demands that coffee-houses should refuse entry to spies and mischief-makers. Dark rumours of plots and counter-plots swirled in London's coffee-houses, but they were also centres of informed political debate. Swift remarked that he was “not yet convinced that any Access to men in Power gives a man more Truth or Light than the Politicks of a Coffee House.” Miles's coffee-house was the meeting-place of a discussion group, founded in 1659 and known as the Amateur Parliament.

Pepys observed that its debates were “the most ingeniose, and smart, that I ever heard, or expect to heare, and bandied with great eagernesse; the arguments in the Parliament howse were but flatte to it.” After debates, he noted, the group would hold a vote using a “wooden oracle”, or ballot-box—a novelty at the time. Sweet smell of sedition The contrast with France was striking. One French visitor to London, the Abbé Prévost, declared that coffee-houses, “where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government”, were the “seats of English liberty”. Coffee-houses were popular in Paris, where 380 had been established by 1720. As in London, they were associated with particular topics or lines of business. But with strict curbs on press freedom and a bureaucratic system of state censorship, France had far fewer sources of news than did England, Holland or Germany. This led to the emergence of handwritten newsletters of Paris gossip, transcribed by dozens of copyists and sent by post to subscribers in Paris and beyond.

The lack of a free press also meant that poems and songs passed around on scraps of paper, along with coffee-house gossip, were important sources of news for many Parisians. Little wonder then that coffee-houses, like other public places in Paris, were stuffed with government spies. Anyone who spoke out against the state risked being hauled off to the Bastille, whose archives contain reports of hundreds of coffee-house conversations, noted down by informers. “At the Café de Foy someone said that the king had taken a mistress, that she was named Gontaut, and that she was a beautiful woman, the niece of the Duc de Noailles,” runs one report from the 1720s.

Another, from 1749, reads, “Jean-Louis Le Clerc made the following remarks in the Café de Procope: that there never has been a worse king; that the court and the ministers make the king do shameful things, which utterly disgust his people.” Those “who assembled day after day in the Café de Procope saw, with penetrating glance, in the depths of their black drink, the illumination of the year of the revolution” Despite their reputation as breeding-grounds for discontent, coffee-houses seem to have been tolerated by the French government as a means of keeping track of public opinion. Yet it was at the Café de Foy, eyed by police spies while standing on a table brandishing two pistols, that Camille Desmoulins roused his countrymen with his historic appeal—“Aux armes, citoyens!”—on July 12th 1789. The Bastille fell two days later, and the French revolution had begun.

Jules Michelet, a French historian, subsequently noted that those “who assembled day after day in the Café de Procope saw, with penetrating glance, in the depths of their black drink, the illumination of the year of the revolution.” Can the coffee-houses' modern equivalent, the internet, claim to have had such an impact? Perhaps not. But the parallels are certainly striking. Originally the province of scientists, the internet has since grown to become a nexus of commercial, journalistic and political interchange. In discussion groups and chatrooms, gossip passes freely—a little too freely, think some regulators and governments, which have tried and generally failed to rein them in. Snippets of political news are rounded up and analysed in weblogs, those modern equivalents of pamphlets and broadsides. Obscure scientific and medical papers, once available only to specialists, are just clicks away; many scientists explain their work, both to their colleagues and to the public at large, on web pages. Countless new companies and business models have emerged, not many of them successful, though one or two have become household names. Online exchanges and auction houses, from eBay to industry-specific marketplaces, match buyers and sellers of components, commodities and household bric-à-brac.

Coffee, meet WiFi The kinship between coffee-houses and the internet has recently been underlined by the establishment of wireless “hotspots” which provide internet access, using a technology called WiFi, in modern-day coffee-shops. T-Mobile, a wireless network operator, has installed hotspots in thousands of Starbucks coffee-shops across America and Europe. Coffee-shop WiFi is particularly popular in Seattle—home to both Starbucks and such leading internet firms as Amazon and Microsoft. Such hotspots allow laptop-toting customers to check their e-mail and read the news as they sip their lattes. But history provides a cautionary tale for those hotspot operators that charge for access. Coffee-houses used to charge for coffee, but gave away access to reading materials. Many coffee-shops are now following the same model, which could undermine the prospects for fee-based hotspots. Information, both in the 17th century and today, wants to be free—and coffee-drinking customers, it seems, expect it to be.

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 in History The London Stock Exchange is an English financial institution, it has played an important role in banking, money and investment for hundreds of years.

The idea of a ‘stock exchange’ has been thought to have originated with the Ancient Romans where people could own the equivalent of today’s shares in different organisations. Since the Roman times, there have been examples of people buying and selling shares in organisations and businesses, however, in terms of English stock exchanges the important turning point was the formation of the Dutch East India Trading Company. Financial Developments In 1602 the Dutch East India Trading Company was formed, it was set up as a ‘joint-stock’ company and had shares that could be traded. It was a crucial moment in investment history and many historians believe it had a great influence on the organisation of English financial institutions. The formation of this trading company paved the way for new developments in England under William III, or ‘William of Orange’. William was keen to fund wars and update the English financial system and during his reign the first government bonds were issued in 1693 and the Bank of England was established. These developments eased the way for the formation of more English ‘joint-stock’ companies and eventually led to the beginnings of the London Stock Exchange. Advertisement Source The Royal Exchange The London Stock Exchange was, however, by no means the first English stock exchange.

The Royal Exchange was set up by Thomas Gresham and opened by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571. The London Stock Exchange, arguably now the more well-known exchange, did not come into being until over a century later and it began in a rather surprising place. Instead of a bank or in a financial company, the origins of the London Stock Exchange can be found in coffee shops. Stock-brokers in the 17th century were forced to use this rather unlikely location after they were banned from the Royal Exchange for being overly rude and ‘rowdy’. Instead of being able to meet in the Royal Exchange, stock brokers had to make do with finding somewhere else. They made local coffee shops their base and the most popular of these shops for the stock brokers was Jonathan’s Coffee House, located in Change Alley. Advertisement The Coffee House Meetings The meetings of the stock brokers in the coffee shops soon became more organised. A man called John Casting took the initiative and began to list the prices of commodities, provisions and exchange rates, this list was published a few times a week and only for a few days at a time. Using this list, that was known as ‘the Course of the Exchange and other things’, the stock brokers could hold auctions.

The auctions that they held only lasted for as long as a candle would burn and became known as ‘by the inch of candle’ auctions. The popularity of these auction soon grew, more stock brokers began to take part and new companies put their stocks and shares up for sale. Due to the burgeoning popularity of these auctions and meetings, a larger location was required and Garraway’s Coffee House was chosen. Historians of this period have claimed that these meetings in the coffee houses were the first evidence of trading marketable securities in London. Source Rules & Regulations Though the stock brokers were initially forced to find a new location for their meetings when they were banned from the Royal Exchange, there were also benefits of not going through the official Royal Exchange channels. The Royal Exchange was the first stock exchange in England but many brokers continued to frequent the coffee shops instead of the Exchange even after they were allowed to return. 1697 saw the introduction of legislation that put heavy penalties and fines on any brokers that were unlicensed. Only one hundred stock-brokers were actually authorised to trade in the Royal Exchange, which left many stock-brokers unable to carry out their business.

Meeting in coffee houses was actually a much more preferable option for the majority of stock-brokers in London, there were fewer harsh restrictions and more options in the coffee shops of Change Alley than there were in the Royal Exchange. Advertisement Source The London Stock Exchange Stock brokers continued to visit the coffee shops to buy, sell and trade for many more years and the coffee houses were particularly popular after the Seven Years War . The situation became more formal when 150 stock brokers, who had been meeting at Jonathan’s Coffee House, decided to start a more official organisation. The group of brokers moved into a new building in Sweeting’s Alley in 1773, a building that had a dealing room for making transactions and a coffee room to keep with their roots. It was a popular move and the building became unofficially known as ‘The Stock Exchange’. Initially brokers only had to pay an entrance fee in order to take part but after several cases of fraud, the Stock Exchange introduced annual membership fees in 1801. The introduction of membership fees led the organisation to become a regulated exchange - the London Stock Exchange. Since then the London Stock Exchange has been an important centre for all things related to stocks, shares and investment.

The exchange is now the largest in Europe and is the fourth largest in the world. Advertisement Investment Trusts Though the London Stock Exchange was popular with stock-brokers and those with large amounts of funds at their disposal, it was not as easy for smaller investors to take part. The introduction of investment trusts changed this situation as through an investment trust, those with smaller resources could pool them with other investors and make bigger investments. This change meant that shares were more easily accessible to buy and sell for everyone, not just the hugely wealthy. One of the first investment trusts was the Foreign & Colonial Government Trust (F&C) set up in 1868. Other early investment trusts are still running today, such as the Witan Investment Trust, which was founded in 1909 to manage the funds of Lord Farringdon but has since become one of the largest trusts on the Stock Exchange. The London Stock Exchange has come a long way since the 17th century coffee houses and is highly important to the English financial system.

Advertisement London Stock Exchange Limited -- Company History London Stock Exchange Limited Telephone: (&plus;44) 171 797 1372 Fax: (&plus;44) 171 410 6861 Founded: 1773 as The Stock Exchange Employees: 536 Operating Revenues: £149.8 million (US$93.19 million) (1999) NAIC: 52321 Securities and Commodity Exchanges Company Perspectives: Developing our Markets: Our task is to ensure that we continue to win business for our markets and for London. Our portfolio of markets, designed to meet U.K. and international needs, provides the infrastructure which enables companies and investors to prosper, as well as meeting the needs of securities firms. Regulating our Markets: To maintain investor protection, as well as a fair and efficient marketplace for issues, we keep our rules and procedures under regular review, remaining responsive to customers' needs and to changes in the business environment. Delivering our Markets: In delivering our services, we aim for the best possible combination of responsiveness, reliability, functionality and cost.

We are committed to providing a consistently high level of service to all our customers--whatever the conditions prevailing in the market. Key Dates: 1553: The world's first joint-stock company is founded. 1694: The Bank of England is formed as a joint-stock company. 1697: Legislation governing brokers is introduced. 1760: A stock broker's club convenes at a coffee house in London. 1773: The stock broker's club adopts a new name: The Stock Exchange. 1801: A permanent exchange site is constructed. 1872: The ticker tape is introduced. 1890: Association of Stock Exchanges is founded. 1929: Wall Street crash ends the Exchange's trading in U.S. stocks. 1972: A new Stock Exchange building is opened. 1973: England's provincial exchanges are combined; women are allowed on trading floor for the first time. 1986: The Exchange reorganizes as a private limited company; electronic trading is initiated. 1998: An alliance with Germany's Frankfurt Exchange is forged. 2000: An alliance with eight European exchanges is finalized.

Company History: The London Stock Exchange Limited (LSE) is the world's oldest stock exchange and one of the top three stock exchanges in the world, after the New York and Tokyo exchanges. Founded in 1773 and reincorporated as a private limited company in 1986, the LSE is also the world leader in international share trading. The LSE operates a number of market products, including the main board listing, featuring more than 3,000 companies and including over 500 international companies, as well as the secondary AIM (Alternative Investment Market), established in 1995 as a vehicle for trades in small, high-growth companies. More than 70 companies are listed on the AIM board. After launching the Stock Exchange Electronic Trading Services (SETS) in 1997, the LSE introduced a new listing, techMARK, tailored to the specific needs of the high-technology sector and designed to compete with the NASDAQ index. With a total equity turnover value of more than £3.5 billion, the LSE achieved gross revenues of £149.8 million in 1999.

The LSE is led by Chairman John Kemp-Welch and CEO Gavin Casey. A World's First in the 18th Century Founded in 1773, the LSE reflects more than 200 years of the development of share-based enterprise. The world's first joint-stock company was created in the mid-16th century. Traditionally, companies were either owned by a single individual or through a partnership with two or more owners. While this arrangement sufficed for smaller businesses and stable market sectors, direct financial responsibility for riskier endeavors--such as the great trade exploration voyages of the period--were judged too precarious for an individual or limited group of investors. The organization of such a venture, that of a voyage to trace a northern sea route to the Far East from London in 1553, introduced the world's first shareholder-based company. Selling shares to a larger number of investors reduced the financial risk for each individual investor, while enabling the company itself to raise the capital needed to fund its operations. This first joint-stock company failed to find a northern sea route to the Far East. However, a meeting with Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible brought the company the exclusive rights to trade between Russia and England.

The Muscovy Company, as it came to be called, became a commercial success, rewarded its shareholders with large profits, and inspired the creation of new investment ventures. The Muscovy Company served as the model for future shareholder-based companies. Investors contributed capital funding, while direction of the company's operations remained in the hands of its management. The investors, who were allowed to sell their holdings or buy more shares, were given dividends according to the company's profits. As more companies were set up following the Muscovy model, a new profession came into being, that of the broker, who acted as a middleman for trades of shares, helping to boost not only the number of joint-stock companies but also the number of investors. Adding impetus to this movement was the foundation of the Bank of England as a joint-stock company by King William III in order to provide funding for England's military campaign against France at the end of the 17th century. The shareholder system was given further support by legislation to limit and punish brokers for malpractice. By the 18th century, a flourishing "market" for shares was in place--so much so that the period marked the first stock market crash in 1720.

While trading took place at the Royal Exchange through the middle of the century, the rowdy behavior--itself to become something of a tradition on the market floor--of certain brokers led to their exclusion. Instead of leaving the business, these brokers began meeting at Jonathan's Coffee House and other coffee shops in the Threadneedle Street area of London. In 1760, some 150 brokers founded their own club to buy and sell stock at Jonathan's. The following decade, in 1773, the members of the club changed its name to the Stock Exchange. As the individual broker members of the Stock Exchange began to establish brokerage firms, and the number of markets expanded, the Stock Exchange saw a need for new quarters. In 1801, the Stock Exchange began construction on a new building at what was to become its permanent London location. The following year, the Stock Exchange published a Deed of Settlement, formally outlining the operating rules and procedures of the stock market. If the original joint-stock companies were formed to provide funding for the many voyages of discovery, overseas trading, and foreign military campaigns, the shareholder-based company structure showed itself easily adaptable to the changing economic landscape of the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, coupled with such major infrastructure undertakings as the building of a national railroad system, provided the basis for the modern period of shareholder-based corporations. The appearance of a great many new companies exploiting a greater number of materials, products, and markets prompted the formation of some 20 other stock exchanges operating in the United Kingdom. Nonetheless, the London Stock Exchange remained the United Kingdom's most important stock exchange. New technologies, such as the telegraph, brought such stock market innovations as the ticker tape--the first, launched in 1872 by the London Stock Exchange, was capable of an output of six words per minute--which in turn enabled trades to take place elsewhere than the market floor. London's position as the world's financial center placed the LSE at the top of the world's stock markets. 20th-Century Evolution At the end of the 19th century, the LSE revised its charters. Changes in the Deed of Settlement in 1875 created a more corporate-based entity for the Exchange, which now operated on behalf of its owner-members&mdash opposed to being operated by its members--while members remained responsible for the company's debts and operational obligations.

A further evolution occurred in 1890, when the country's stock exchanges were linked together for the first time, under an Association of Stock Exchanges. The individual exchanges continued to operate independently, however. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of guidelines refined the Stock Exchange's member lists into "broker" and "jobber" classes. Disruption in European trade caused by the outbreak of World War I led to the closure of the continent's stock exchanges. The LSE was forced to follow suit, suspending trades in July 1914, the last of the European exchanges to close. The Exchange's members quickly joined the war effort, creating the Stock Exchange Battalion of Royal Fusiliers, which succeeded in raising more than 1,600 volunteers. After it became evident that the war was to be a protracted one, the LSE reopened at the beginning of 1915.

Normal trading conditions were not restored, however, until the end of the war in 1918, when the British government introduced a highly successful series of "Victory Bonds." If the British market was largely spared the brunt of the New York stock market crash of 1929, the LSE was nonetheless forced to end trading in U.S. shares. While the buildup to World War II enabled the world's stock markets to regain their momentum, the devastation of the European economy brought on a vast change in the world economic and stock market landscape. The rise of the United States as the world's preeminent economic force saw the New York Stock Exchange outpace the LSE as the world's busiest and richest exchange. The rise of Japan as an economic power beginning in the 1960s and especially into the 1970s and 1980s saw the Tokyo Stock Exchange take over the number two position. Nonetheless, London remained the center of the European community's financial markets, and the LSE gained increasing importance in the market for international stocks. London was also to figure prominently as the undisputed financial center of the then-forming European Union.

Meanwhile, the stock markets were attracting larger numbers of investors, and especially investments from private individuals. The Exchange's member firms saw the need to expand their broker staff to accommodate the new influx of investors as well as the new investment products being introduced at the time. The increasing activity led to the need for new quarters; in 1972, the new LSE building, featuring a new 23,000-square-foot trading floor and a 26-story office building, was completed on the site where the Exchange had operated since 1801. In the same year, women were granted the right to become stockbrokers for the first time. Increasing competition and technological development had also brought about both the need and the potential to consolidate the United Kingdom's many stock exchanges. The cooperation that had begun under the Association of Stock Exchanges had led to closer coordination among the United Kingdom's stock exchanges, and particularly among the more than 20 exchanges operated outside of London. The new market realities of the late 20th century were increasingly challenging the viability of these smaller exchanges. In 1973, moves were taken to combine the United Kingdom's smaller provincial exchanges into a single national exchange under the LSE.

The year 1986 marked a new era for the LSE. Changes in the legislation governing the United Kingdom's investment businesses, as part of the Companies Act of 1985, enabled the LSE to restructure its operations the following year as a private limited company (plc) with its member broker firms becoming shareholders. Under the company's articles of incorporation, these shareholders were not eligible to receive distribution of any profits. Instead, all profits were to be returned to the company for infrastructure and other development costs. On October 27, 1986, the LSE underwent a still more visible transformation. Known thereafter as the "Big Bang" of the London financial scene, that day saw the implementation of several changes to the LSE's operations. For one, the company's member firms were now allowed to be purchased by outsider corporations, enabling these brokerages to increase their own capital resources in order to compete with increasingly powerful firms overseas. Another change was the abolition of minimum commission charges; stock exchange member firms were now free to negotiate their commissions with clients. At the same time, the individual members of the exchange no longer held voting rights.

Moreover, marking the end of centuries of tradition, trading was moved off the trading floor to so-called "dealing-rooms," where trades were no longer conducted face-to-face but by computer and telephone. The days of the "rowdy" broker were done, at least in London. The introduction of computer technology, which enabled instantaneous pricing displays anywhere in the United Kingdom--or even the world--also allowed brokers to operate offices beyond London. The appearance of new commercial brokerage branch offices soon became commonplace across the United Kingdom. The LSE's Deed of Settlement, in place since 1885 and originally introduced in 1802, was finally replaced by a Memorandum and Articles of Association in 1991. Under the new articles, the LSE's governing body, the Council of the Exchange, was replaced by a board of directors drawing not only from the Exchange's own management but also from its member and client base. Changing Financial Climate in the 1990s and Beyond The LSE faced rising pressures to adapt to the changing nature of the stock market in the 1990s.

On the one hand, new technologies-particularly electronic trading systems that were rapidly rendering obsolete the Exchange's reliance on telephone confirmations--were stepping up the pace of trading and enabling trading to continue nonstop around the world; as Western markets closed for the day, their Far Eastern counterparts were just beginning trading. On the other hand, playing the stock market was becoming popular among larger portions of the population, with resulting pressures to make trading more accessible. At the same time, a new breed of company was making evident the need for a new type of stock exchange. The roaring success of so-called "start-up" companies, that is, high-technology specialists that often went from zero to enormous market capitalization in brief periods of time, gave new impetus to exchanges, such as the NASDAQ, that were able to offer the flexibility these new companies, which often had yet to show a profit, required. In 1995, the LSE responded to this new market with the creation of AIM, the Alternative Investment Market, created specifically for startups and smaller companies. By the end of the decade, AIM had managed to attract nearly 400 companies.

In 1997, the LSE undertook another new venture with the introduction of the Stock Exchange Electronic Trading Service (SETS), which replaced--at least for some brokers and trades--traditional techniques with an electronic interface. Meanwhile, the LSE was preparing to confront the new realities of the European Market, as the EC prepared for the launch of the Euro, the single European currency. With Frankfurt winning the position as the site of the European Central Bank, London suddenly found its position as European financial leader under attack. In order to defend its position, the LSE quickly entered into a partnership agreement with the Deutsche Börse in Frankfurt. Momentum among high-technology stocks continued to build in the waning years of the century, when much of the world began preparations to enter into a new economic landscape, the so-called Internet Economy. In 1999, in order to provide a more appropriate vehicle for this new breed of stock, the LSE launched the techMark exchange. This new exchange, modeled directly on the NASDAQ and the Neuer Markt of Germany, provided still more flexible listing conditions for high-tech and startup companies.

As the LSE entered its fourth century of trading, it continued to show the willingness to evolve and embrace new economic realities that had enabled it to maintain its position as not only the world's oldest stock exchange, but one of the world's leading exchanges. In early 2000, the LSE began reviewing a number of its policies--including allowing anonymous electronic trades for certain companies--meant to bring London in line with the policies of a new alliance among exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Milan, and Zurich, scheduled to begin trading in November 2000. Principal Competitors: New York Stock Exchange, Inc.; Paris Bourse SA; Tokyo Stock Exchange. Further Reading: Andrew, John, "Understanding Stock Markets: Deals Were Done," Independent, November 1, 1997, p. 5. Garfield, Andrew, "London Stock Exchange to Launch Rival to NASDAQ," Independent, August 21, 1999, p. 15. Jagger, Suzy, "Exchange Overhaul Attacked by Dealers," Daily Telegraph (London), January 3, 2000, p. 1.

"London's Quiet Revolution," Economist, October 18, 1997. "London Under Threat," Economist, November 21, 1998. Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 34. St. James Press, 2000.

Question: Which London institution was founded at Jonathan's Coffee House in 1773?
Answer: Stock Exchange