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28-593: The Institution was formed, somewhat opportunistically, to provide a revenue-paying purpose for an assembly hall which had been constructed in Coram Street, north of new housing around Bloomsbury Square . Previous ventures at the building having failed, the proprietors "thought it expedient" to imitate the model of the Royal and London Institutions; to that end they organised a meeting of local residents, seeking 12,500 guineas at 25 guineas each from 500 subscribers. The objects of

56-457: A bronze statue by Richard Westmacott of Charles James Fox , who was a Whig associate of the Dukes of Bedford. None of the original 17th-century buildings survive, but there are many handsome 18th- and early 19th-century houses. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain was based in an 18th-century building on the southern side of the square partly credited to John Nash . The eastern side of

84-502: A large expedition with the intention of founding a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. The expedition did not succeed in this goal; they actually founded a settlement in the vicinity of present-day Victoria, Texas , but even this was short-lived. In May 1716, Scottish economist John Law , who had been appointed Controller General of Finances of France under the Duke of Orléans , created

112-504: A monopoly on trade and mineral wealth. The Company boomed on paper. Law was given the title Duc d'Arkansas. In 1699 the French formed the first permanent European settlement in Louisiana (New France) , at Fort Maurepas . They were under the direction of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville . The first capital of New France from 1702 until 1711 was La Mobile , after which the capital was relocated to

140-516: A single pass and thrust of his sword. Law would be convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but would escape his condemned cell and go on to become the founder of the Mississippi Company and the de facto prime minister of France. By the early 19th century, Bloomsbury was no longer fashionable with the upper classes . Consequently, the Duke of Bedford of the day moved out of Bedford House, which

168-580: Is a garden square in Bloomsbury , in the London Borough of Camden , London . Developed in the late 17th century, it was initially known as Southampton Square and was one of the earliest London squares. By the early 19th century, Bedford House along the north of the square had been demolished and replaced with terraced housing designed by James Burton . To the north of the square is Great Russell Street and Bedford Place , leading to Russell Square . To

196-837: Is found missing in the 1891 counterpart. Edward Wedlake Brayley was secretary and librarian of the Institution from 1825 to 1854. Amongst those who lectured at the Russell Institute were: The Russell Institution was one of four such organisations in London in the early nineteenth century; its models were the Royal Institution and the London Institution; the other was: 51°31′27.08″N 0°7′33.95″W  /  51.5241889°N 0.1260972°W  / 51.5241889; -0.1260972 Bloomsbury Square Bloomsbury Square

224-562: The Banque Générale Privée ("General Private Bank"). It was one of the first European financial institutions to develop the use of paper money . It was a private bank , but three-quarters of the capital consisted of government bills and government-accepted notes. In August 1717, Law bought the Mississippi Company to help the French colony in Louisiana . In the same year Law conceived a joint-stock trading company called

252-698: The Banque Royale (Royal Bank) in 1718, meaning the notes were guaranteed by the king, Louis XV of France . The company absorbed the Compagnie des Indes Orientales ("Company of the East Indies"), the Compagnie de Chine ("Company of China"), and other rival trading companies and became the Compagnie Perpétuelle des Indes "Perpetual Company of the Indies"), on 23 May 1719 with a monopoly of French commerce on all

280-692: The Compagnie d'Occident (The Mississippi Company, or, literally, "Company of [the] West"). Law was named the Chief Director of this new company, which was granted a trade monopoly of the West Indies and North America by the French government. The company was involved in the Atlantic slave trade , importing African slaves to points as far North as modern Illinois along the Mississippi River. The bank became

308-664: The Company of the West from 1717, and the Company of the Indies from 1719 ) was a corporation holding a business monopoly in French colonies in North America and the West Indies. In 1717, the Mississippi Company received a royal grant with exclusive trading rights for 25 years. The rise and fall of the company is connected with the activities of the Scottish financier and economist John Law who

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336-649: The European population. Law encouraged some German-speaking people, including Alsatians and Swiss , to emigrate. They gave their names to the German Coast and the Lac des Allemands in Louisiana. Prisoners were set free in Paris from September 1719 onwards, and encouraged by Law to marry young women recruited in hospitals. In May 1720, after complaints from the Mississippi Company and

364-540: The French government was forced to admit that the number of paper notes being issued by the Banque Royale exceeded the value of the amount of metal coinage it held. The market price of company shares eventually reached the peak of 10,000 livres. As the shareholders were selling their shares, the money supply in France suddenly doubled, and inflation burgeoned. Inflation reached a monthly rate of 23% in January 1720. Opponents of

392-404: The Institution were the "gradual formation of a library, consisting of the most useful works in ancient and modern literature; the establishment of a reading room provided with the best foreign and English journals, and the periodical publications, and lectures on literary and scientific subjects. The books in the library will be circulated for reading among the proprietors." The institution proper

420-402: The concessioners about this class of French immigrants, the French government prohibited such deportations. However, there was a third shipment of prisoners in 1721. Law exaggerated the wealth of Louisiana with an effective marketing scheme, which led to wild speculation on the shares of the company in 1719. The scheme promised success for the Mississippi Company by combining investor fervor and

448-480: The financier attempted to convert their notes into specie (gold and silver) en masse , forcing the bank to stop payment on its paper notes. The "bubble" burst at the end of 1720. By September 1720 the price of shares in the company had fallen to 2,000 livres and to 1,000 by December. By September 1721 share prices had dropped to 500 livres, where they had been at the beginning. Thornton explained why Law's scheme failed: "He forgot that there might be no bounds to

476-546: The literature, such as a report of 1851 lectures there by Charles Richard Weld ; an observation in Frederick Miller's 1874 St Pancras – Past and Present noting that some of the premises had been given over to a wine merchant, but that the library continued to receive daily papers, and monthly and annual journals. The Institution survived until near the end of the century; the Post Office listed it in an 1881 directory, but it

504-457: The seas. Simultaneously, the bank began issuing more notes than it could represent in coinage; this led to a currency devaluation, which was eventually followed by a bank run when the value of the new paper currency was halved. Louis XIV's long reign and wars had nearly bankrupted the French monarchy. Rather than reduce spending, the Duke of Orléans , Regent for Louis XV, endorsed the monetary theories of Scottish financier John Law . In 1716, Law

532-614: The site of present-day Mobile, Alabama . In 1718, there were only 700 Europeans in Louisiana. Bénard de la Harpe and his party left New Orleans in 1719 to explore the Red River . In 1721, he explored the Arkansas River. At the Yazoo settlements in Mississippi he was joined by Jean Benjamin who became the scientist for the expedition. The Mississippi Company arranged ships to bring in 800 more settlers, who landed in Louisiana in 1718, doubling

560-497: The south is Bloomsbury Way. To the west is the British Museum and Holborn is the nearest underground station to the southeast. There are gardens in the centre of the square. The square was developed for the 4th Earl of Southampton in the early 1660s and was initially known as Southampton Square. It was one of the earliest London squares. The Earl's own house, then known as Southampton House and later as Bedford House after

588-697: The square and the rest of the Bloomsbury Estate passed by marriage from the Earls of Southampton to the Dukes of Bedford , occupied the whole of the north side of the square, where Bedford Place is now located. The other sides were lined with typical terraced houses of the time, which were initially occupied by members of the aristocracy and gentry. On 9 April 1694 Bloomsbury Square was the setting for an infamous duel. The then 23-year-old Scottish economist and financier John Law fought Edward 'Beau' Wilson, killing him with

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616-747: The square is occupied by a large early 20th-century office building called Victoria House , built for, and for many decades occupied by, Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society . The garden is open to the public and was refurbished in 2003. The garden is Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens . Other squares on the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury included: [REDACTED] Media related to Bloomsbury Square at Wikimedia Commons Mississippi Company The Mississippi Company ( French : Compagnie du Mississippi ; founded 1684, named

644-500: The wealth of its Louisiana prospects into a sustainable joint-stock trading company. The popularity of company shares was such that they sparked a need for more paper bank notes, and when shares generated profits the investors were paid out in paper bank notes. In 1720, the bank and company were merged and Law was appointed by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans , then Regent for Louis XV, to be Comptroller General of Finances to attract capital. Law's pioneering note-issuing bank thrived until

672-457: Was demolished and replaced with further terraced houses. In the 19th century the square was occupied mainly by middle class professionals. The writer Isaac D'Israeli lived at No. 6 from 1817 to 1829 and for part of that time his son, the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli lived with him. In the 20th century most of the buildings came to be used as offices. Bloomsbury Square's garden contains

700-488: Was exaggerated in a marketing scheme for the newly formed Mississippi Company, and its value temporarily soared to the equivalent of $ 6.5 trillion today, which would make it the second most valuable company in history behind the Dutch East India Company . The Compagnie du Mississippi was originally chartered in 1684 by the request of René-Robert Cavelier (de La Salle) who sailed in that year from France with

728-667: Was given a charter for the Banque Royale under which the national debt was assigned to the bank in return for extraordinary privileges. The key to the Banque Royale agreement was that the national debt would be paid from revenues derived from opening the Mississippi Valley. The Bank was tied to other ventures of Law – the Company of the West and the Companies of the Indies. All were known as the Mississippi Company. The Mississippi Company had

756-431: Was in being by June 1808, 2,700 guineas being spent to purchase the premises and some 4,500 guineas on equipping a library and providing a stock of books. Two or three courses of scientific lectures were given per annum. In order to fund the institution's ongoing expenses and provide some guarantee of stability, subscribers paid a guinea per annum. The Institution was relatively long-lived; periodic mentions of it are found in

784-537: Was then the Controller General of Finances of France. Though the company itself started to become profitable and remained solvent until the collapse of the bubble, when speculation in French financial circles and land development in the region became frenzied and detached from economic reality, the Mississippi bubble became one of the earliest examples of an economic bubble . In France , the wealth of Louisiana

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