As part of the BBC’s Money season, Tuesday 22 November sees the broadcast of When Bankers Were Good.
Presenter Ian Hislop champions the generosity of wealthy Victorians financiers such as Elizabeth Fry (immortalised on the £5 note), Angela Burdett-Coutts, Samuel Gurney and Natty Rothschild.
One of the key bankers featured in the programme is our very own George Peabody.
Having left school at the age of eleven, American-born Peabody began working in the village store.
By the age of nineteen, he was in charge of the store, which subsequently had branches in Philadelphia and New York.
By his early forties, Peabody had settled in London, and subsequently established himself as a merchant banker.
His firm was celebrated for its stability in times of crisis, as well as for its integrity in business.
In 1862, with George Peabody well into his 60s, the Peabody Donation Fund was set up.
The Times celebrated this ‘act of beneficence unexampled in its largeness’. Today, Peabody’s estates continue to provide housing for up to 50,000 Londoners.
Of the philanthropists featured in the documentary, Ian Hislop considers Peabody to be one of the three most important in the Victorian era.
The programme is featured in the December issue of BBC History Magazine, which contains reference to George Peabody.
It is also celebrated as the ‘documentary of the week’ in the Radio Times.
When Bankers Were Good will be broadcast on BBC2 at 9pm on Tuesday 22 November.
If you miss the programme first time around, it will be repeated on Wednesday 23 November at 11.20pm.
Also in the news:
Peabody and QPR bring the Premier League to our Willow Tree estateWork begins at Pembury Circus
