Royal Exchange

It was still called Exchange Alley and it was the busiest street in the city because those coffee shops were where people went to trade shares in the South Sea Company, a company whose stock price rose from around £100 at the start of the year to over £1,000 by the summer, without the fundamentals of the business changing whatsoever.

The Royal Exchange, which is just across from Exchange Alley, had been established by royal charter in 1571.

There was a limit of 100 licensed brokers who could trade on the exchange.

Brokers acted as intermediaries, executing orders for their clients and charging a commission.

This was a risky business, but one where ordinary people sometimes made extraordinary fortunes.

Walter Thornberry wrote in 1878 of a watchmaker turned stock jobber named Quare who made such a fortune on Exchange Alley that the Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Marlborough, and 300 quality guests attended his daughter's wedding.

In 1698, the stock jobbers had been expelled from the Royal Exchange because of their terrible behaviour, and at first they took up trading in the street outside the Exchange.

After a short while, the city government prohibited them from meeting on the street, so they started to meet up to trade stocks at Jonathan's Coffee House and soon all of the other coffee houses in Exchange Alley.

Do not think that Cheap was a narrow street.

It was a great open space lying between St. Paul's and what is now the Royal Exchange, with streets north and south formed by rows of these celds or sheds.

Presently, the sheds became houses with shops in front and gardens behind.

The roadway on the south side of this open space was called the Side of Cheap.

The streets and lanes of London within the walls were very nearly the same as they are at present, except for the great thoroughfares constructed within the last thirty years.

That is to say, when one entered at Ludgate and passed through Paul's Churchyard, he found himself in the Broad Street, the marketplace of the city, known as Cheap.

This continued to the place where the Royal Exchange now stands, where it broke off into two branches, Cornhill and Lombard Street.

These respectively led into Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, which united again before Aldgate.

Do not think that Cheap was a narrow street.

It was a great open space lying between St. Paul's and what is now the Royal Exchange, with streets north and south formed by rows of these celds, or sheds.

Presently, the sheds became houses with shops in front and gardens behind.

The roadway on the south side of this open space was called the Side of Cheap.

The streets and lanes of London within the walls were very nearly the same as they are at present, except for the great thoroughfares constructed within the last 30 years.

That is to say, when one entered at Ludgate and passed through Paul's Churchyard, he found himself in the Broad Street, the marketplace of the city, known as Cheap.

This continued to the place where the Royal Exchange now stands, where it broke off into two branches, Cornhill and Lombard Street.

These respectively led into Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, which united again before Aldgate.