How Rich Was Gibbon
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21291902 |
|---|---|
| Authors | F P Lock (Historical Archives, corresponding author), Frederick Lock (FREDERICK LOCK is emeritus professor of English at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. He is grateful to Barclays Group Archives for access to his main source, the Goslings Customer Registers, and for permission to reproduce Figure 1. He would also like to thank the president and fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, for access to the Gibbon papers in their archives. The archivists at both Barclays and Magdalen have been consistently helpful over many years in facilitating his research. The paper) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 15-44 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Archives The Journal of the British Records Association (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-9535 • E-ISSN: 2516-8975 |
| Publisher | Liverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3828/archives.2023.2 |
| OpenAlex | W4399909583 |
| Language | EN |
From 1766 to his death, Edward Gibbon (1737–94) banked with Goslings of Fleet Street. Goslings merged with Barclays in 1896, and their customer ledgers are preserved among the Barclays Group Archives. Bank accounts provide exceptionally reliable historical evidence, but are rarely self-explanatory. The ledgers themselves usually record no more than a date, a name and a sum. Yet with careful analysis, and in conjunction with documents surviving from among Gibbon’s own papers, the accounts can be made to reveal much about his finances. Gibbon claimed that being neither too rich nor too poor enabled him to write his great History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88). His ‘golden mediocrity’ provided him with leisure and resources, without depriving him of incentive. This essay investigates the truth behind this claim. His position was in fact near the apex of the economic hierarchy, and yet he often found himself short of money. In important ways, such as his not marrying and his decision to retire from London to Lausanne, his moderate fortune constrained his choices. More generally, the essay also illustrates how much can be learned and deduced from careful examination and analysis of the bare list of transactions in a bank account
Geography · Architecture and Art History Studies · Historical and Architectural Studies · Historical Architecture and Urbanism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |