Neal, James, Fordyce And Down
Neale, James, Fordyce and Downe was a London banking house, established in 1757 by Henry Neale, William James, Alexander Fordyce and Richard Downe. Its collapse in June 1772 precipitated a major banking crisis which included the collapse of almost every private bank in Scotland, and a liquidity crisis in the two major banking centres of the world, London and Amsterdam. The bank had been speculating by shorting East India Company stock on a massive scale, and apparently using customer deposits to cover losses. The leading figure in the speculation was agreed to be the partner Alexander Fordyce. He was Scottish, brother of James Fordyce, the distinguished clergyman and author of '' Sermons to Young Women'', and was married to a daughter of the Earl of Balcarres. On June 9 1772, the day before he fled to France, he was reported to have come home in wild spirits, saying that he had "always told the wary ones, ‘and the wise ones, with heads of a chicken and claws of a corbie, that ...
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Alexander Fordyce
Alexander Fordyce (7 August 1729-8 September 1789) was an eminent Scottish banker, centrally involved in the bank run on Neale, James, Fordyce and Downe which led to the credit crisis of 1772. He used the profits from other investments to cover the losses. Early life Alexander was baptized in Belhelvie as the youngest son of George Fordyce of Broadford (1663–Eggie, 1733), six times Provost of Aberdeen who was married twice, had many children but only a few survived. He was (half)brother to David, Agnes, James, and William Fordyce. In 1746 he travelled in the Scottish Highlands. He was educated by his uncle Thomas Blackwell, principle and lecturing common law at Marischal College and who became his brother-in-law in 1751. For some time he was in the hosiery trade at Aberdeen. In 1757, he left and found a situation as outdoor clerk to a banker named Boldero & Co at Lombard Street, London. In 1759 his brother James arrived in London and became minister of the presbyteria ...
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