1.
55 Broadway
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55 Broadway is a Grade I listed building overlooking St. Jamess Park in London. It was designed by Charles Holden and built between 1927 and 1929, in 1931 the building earned him the RIBA London Architecture Medal and it was constructed as a new headquarters for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, the main forerunner of London Underground. Upon completion, it was the tallest office block in the city, the cruciform design afforded the optimum level of natural light to the offices. The ground floor now contains an arcade and many art deco details. Previously the ground floor was given over to London Transport offices, including a travel information centre, cash office. The whole building straddles St. Jamess Park tube station, the east and west wings being immediately above the railway tunnel, when finished it was the tallest steel-framed office building in London, until another Holden building, the University of Londons Senate House, took the accolade. Each relief was carved by a sculptor of the day. Halfway along the north and east facades are a pair of sculptures, Day. The modernism and graphic nakedness of these sculptures created public outrage on their unveiling, newspapers started a campaign to have the statues removed and one company director, Lord Colwyn, offered to pay the cost. Frank Pick, the director of the UERL at the time, took overall responsibility. In the end, Epstein agreed to remove 1.5 inches from the penis of the figure on Day. The function suite on the 10th floor of the building was set up as a dining room for the chairman. The building, first listed as Grade II in 1970, was re-graded to Grade I in 2011, in 2013, it was announced that 55 Broadway will be converted into luxury apartments once London Underground move operations from the building in 2015. In May 2014, it was announced that the architects, TateHindle, will lead the redevelopment planning, with applications expected to be filed in the autumn
2.
Charing Cross
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Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London. It gives its name to several landmarks, including Charing Cross railway station, Charing Cross is named after the Eleanor cross that stood on the site, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross has been occupied since 1675 by a statue of King Charles I. A loose Victorian replica of the cross, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross, was erected a short distance to the east outside the railway station. Until 1931, Charing Cross referred to the part of Whitehall between Great Scotland Yard and Trafalgar Square, at least one property retains a Charing Cross postal address, Drummonds Bank, on the corner of Whitehall and The Mall, which is designated 49 Charing Cross. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has often been regarded as the centre of London. Erect a rich and stately carved cross, Whereon her statue shall with glory shine, George Peele The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First The name of the area, Charing, is derived from the Old English word cierring, referring to a bend in the River Thames. Folk etymology suggests the name derives from chère reine — dear queen in French — and this wooden sculpted cross was the work of the medieval sculptor, Alexander of Abingdon. It was destroyed in 1647 on the orders of Parliament during the Civil War, a 70 ft -high stone sculpture in front of Charing Cross railway station is a copy of the original cross. Erected in 1865, it is situated a few hundred yards to the east of the original cross and it was designed by the architect E. M. Barry and carved by Thomas Earp of Lambeth out of Portland stone, Mansfield stone and Aberdeen granite. It is not a replica, being more ornate than the original. A variation on the name appears to be Charygcrouche, near St Martin in the Fields, since 1675 the site of the cross has been occupied by a statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse. The site is recognised by convention as the centre of London for the purpose of indicating distances by road in favour of other measurement points. Charing Cross is marked on maps as a road junction. Since 1 January 1931 this section of road has been designated part of the Whitehall thoroughfare, the cross has given its name to a railway station, a tube station, police station, hospital, a hotel, a theatre, and a music hall. Charing Cross Road the main route from the north was named after the railway station, at some time between 1232 and 1236, the Chapel and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval was founded at Charing. It occupied land at the corner of the modern Whitehall and into the centre of Northumberland Avenue and it was an Augustinian house, tied to a mother house at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. The house and lands were seized for the king in 1379, protracted legal action returned some rights to the prior, but in 1414, Henry V suppressed the alien houses
3.
Public transport
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Public transport modes include city buses, trolleybuses, trams and passenger trains, rapid transit and ferries. Public transport between cities is dominated by airlines, coaches, and intercity rail, high-speed rail networks are being developed in many parts of the world. Most public transport runs to a timetable, with the most frequent services running to a headway. Share taxis offer services in many parts of the world. Paratransit is sometimes used in areas of low demand and for people who need a door-to-door service, there are distinct differences in urban public transit between Asia, North America, and Europe. In Asia, mass transit operations are run by profit-driven privately owned and publicly traded mass transit. In North America, mass transit operations are run by municipal transit authorities. In Europe, mass transit operations are run by both state-owned and private companies. Public transport services can be profit-driven by use of pay-by-the-distance fares or funded by government subsidies in which flat rate fares are charged to each passenger. Services can be profitable through high ridership numbers and high farebox recovery ratios, or can be regulated. Fully subsidized, zero-fare services operate in some towns and cities, for geographical, historical and economic reasons, there are differences internationally regarding use and extent of public transport. It has 3,400 members from 92 countries, conveyances designed for public hire are as old as the first ferries, and the earliest public transport was water transport, on land people walked or rode an animal. Ferries appear in Greek mythology—corpses in ancient Greece were buried with a coin underneath their tongue to pay the ferryman Charon to take them to Hades, the omnibus was introduced to London in July 1829. The first passenger railway opened in 1806, it ran between Swansea and Mumbles in southwest Wales in the United Kingdom. In 1825 George Stephenson built the Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in northeast England, the usability of different types of public transport, and its overall appeal, can be measured by seven criteria, although they overlap somewhat. These are speed, comfort, safety, cost, proximity, speed is calculated from total journey time including transfers. Proximity means how far passengers have to walk or otherwise travel before they can begin the public transport leg of their journey, timeliness is how long they have to wait for the vehicle. Directness records how far a journey using public transport deviates from the shortest route, an airline provides scheduled service with aircraft between airports
4.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
5.
Secretary of State for Transport
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Her Majestys Principal Secretary of State for Transport is the member of the cabinet responsible for the British Department for Transport. The office used to be called the Minister of Transport and has merged with the Department for the Environment at various times. The current Secretary of State for Transport is Chris Grayling, the Secretary of State is supported by a small team of junior Ministers. Each Minister is a Member of Parliament from either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, the number of Ministers supporting the Secretary of State for Transport vary from time to time, but is usually about 3. The titles given to these Ministers also vary, currently the positions are held by one Minister of State for Transport and two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State for Transport. From 2003 until June 2007 the role of Secretary of State for Transport was combined with the role of Secretary of State for Scotland, the names provided in the sections below are those who have served in a position equivalent to the Secretary of State for Transport. The Ministry of Civil Aviation was created by Winston Churchill in 1944 to look at ways of using aircraft. The new Conservative Government in 1951 appointed the same Minister to Transport and Civil Aviation, Colour key, Conservative Labour National Liberal Colour key, Conservative The Ministry was renamed back to the Ministry of Transport on 14 October 1959. Colour key, Labour Not an official member of the cabinet, Colour key, Conservative Colour key, Conservative The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions was created in 1997 for Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Critics argued from the outset that this was a mistake and that a post of Secretary of State for Transport was needed in its own right. Colour key, Labour After Byers resignation, such a division was made, with the portfolios of Local Government, during the lifetime of DTLGR, John Spellar served as Minister of State for Transport with a right to attend Cabinet. John Spellar Colour key, Conservative Labour Ministry of Civil Aviation Aerodrome Fire Service Track record, Transport secretaries
6.
Conservative Party (UK)
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The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently the party, having won a majority of seats in the House of Commons at the 2015 general election. The partys leader, Theresa May, is serving as Prime Minister. It is the largest party in government with 8,702 councillors. The Conservative Party is one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, the other being its modern rival. The Conservative Partys platform involves support for market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defence, deregulation. In the 1920s, the Liberal vote greatly diminished and the Labour Party became the Conservatives main rivals, Conservative Prime Ministers led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Thatchers tenure led to wide-ranging economic liberalisation, the Conservative Partys domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to them being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world. The Conservatives are the joint-second largest British party in the European Parliament, with twenty MEPs, the party is a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe Europarty and the International Democrat Union. The party is the second-largest in the Scottish Parliament and the second-largest in the Welsh Assembly, the party is also organised in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The Conservative Party traces its origins to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party and they were known as Independent Whigs, Friends of Mr Pitt, or Pittites. After Pitts death the term Tory came into use and this was an allusion to the Tories, a political grouping that had existed from 1678, but which had no organisational continuity with the Pittite party. From about 1812 on the name Tory was commonly used for the newer party, the term Conservative was suggested as a title for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830. The name immediately caught on and was adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto, the term Conservative Party rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845. In 1912, the Liberal Unionists merged with the Conservative Party, in Ireland, the Irish Unionist Alliance had been formed in 1891 which merged anti-Home Rule Unionists into one political movement. Its MPs took the Conservative whip at Westminster, and in essence formed the Irish wing of the party until 1922. The Conservatives served with the Liberals in an all-party coalition government during World War I, keohane finds that the Conservatives were bitterly divided before 1914, especially on the issue of Irish Unionism and the experience of three consecutive election losses
7.
London County Council
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It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council. The LCC was the largest, most significant and most ambitious English municipal authority of its day, by the 19th century the City of London Corporation covered only a small fraction of metropolitan London. From 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works had certain powers across the metropolis, many powers remained in the hands of traditional bodies such as parishes and the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Kent. While the Conservative government of the day would have preferred not to create a body covering the whole of London. It was established as a council on 31 January 1889. Shortly after its creation a Royal Commission on the Amalgamation of the City and County of London considered the means for amalgamation with the City of London. The LCC inherited the powers of its predecessor the MBW, but had authority over matters such as education, city planning. It took over the functions of the London School Board in 1903, from 1899 the Council progressively acquired and operated the tramways in the county, which it electrified from 1903. One of the LCCs most important roles during the late 19th and early 20th century, was in the management of the expanding city, in the Victorian era, new housing had been intentionally urban and large-scale tenement buildings dominated. Beginning in the 1930s, the LCC incentivized an increase in suburban housing styles. The LCC set the standard for new construction at 12 houses per acre of land at a time when some London areas had as many as 80 housing units per acre. By 1938,76,877 units of housing had been built under the auspices of the LCC in the city and its periphery, many of these new housing developments were genuinely working-class, though the poorest could rarely afford even subsidized rents. They relied on an expanding London Underground network that ferried workers en masse to places of employment in the city center and these housing developments were broadly successful, and they resisted the slummification that blighted so many Victorian tenement developments. The LCC undertook between 1857 and 1929 to standardize and clarify street names across London, many streets in different areas of the city had similar or identical names, and the rise of the automobile as a primary mode of transportation in the city made these names unworkable. In an extreme case, there were more than 60 streets called Cross Street spread across the city when the LCC began its process of systematic renaming and these were given names from an approved list that was maintained by the LCC, containing only suitably English names. If street names were deemed un-English, they were slated for change, Zulu Crescent in Battersea, for instance. By 1939, the council had the powers and duties. The LCC initially used the Spring Gardens headquarters inherited from the Metropolitan Board of Works, the building had been designed by Frederick Marrable, the MBWs supeintending architect, and dated from 1860
8.
Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield
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Although born in Britain, his early career was in the United States, where at a young age, he held senior positions in the developing tramway systems of Detroit and New Jersey. In 1898, he served in the United States Navy during the short Spanish–American War, in 1907, his management skills led to his recruitment by the UERL, which was struggling through a financial crisis that threatened its existence. He quickly integrated the companys management and used advertising and public relations to improve profits, as managing director of the UERL from 1910, he led the take-over of competing underground railway companies and bus and tram operations to form an integrated transport operation known as the Combine. Stanley was born on 8 August 1874, in New Normanton, Derbyshire, England and his father worked as a coachbuilder for the Pullman Company. In 1880, the family emigrated to Detroit in the United States, during the 1890s, the family changed its name to Stanley. In 1888, at the age of 14, Stanley left school and went to work as a boy at the Detroit Street Railways Company. He continued to study at evening school and worked long hours and his abilities were recognised early and Stanley was given responsibility for scheduling the services and preparing the timetables when he was 17. Following the expansion and electrification of the tramway, he became General Superintendent of the company in 1894. Stanley was a naval reservist and, during the brief Spanish–American War of 1898, in 1903, Stanley moved to New Jersey to become assistant general manager of the street railway department of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey. The company had been struggling, but Stanley quickly improved its organisation and was promoted to manager of the department in January 1904. In January 1907, he became manager of the whole corporation. In 1904, Stanley married Grace Lowrey of New York, the couple had two daughters, Marian Stanley and Grace Stanley. On 20 February 1907, Sir George Gibb, managing director of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, the UERL was the holding company of four underground railways in central London. Three of these were already in operation and the fourth was about to open, the cost of constructing three new lines in just a few years had put the company in a precarious monetary position and income was not sufficient to pay the interest on its loans. Stanleys responsibility was to restore its finances and he told the companys senior managers that the company was almost bankrupt and got resignation letters from each of them post-dated by six months. In 1908, Stanley joined the board and, in 1910. In July 1910, Stanley took the integration of the group further, further consolidation came with the UERLs take-over of London General Omnibus Company in 1912 and the Central London Railway and the City and South London Railway on 1 January 1913. Of Londons underground railways, only the Metropolitan Railway and the Waterloo & City Railway remained outside of the Underground Groups control, the LGOC was the dominant bus operator in the capital and its high profitability subsidised the rest of the group
9.
Frank Pick
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Frank Pick Hon. RIBA was a British transport administrator. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1902, he worked at the North Eastern Railway, at the UERL he rose through the corporate ranks, becoming joint assistant managing director in 1921 and managing director in 1928. He was chief officer and vice-chairman of the London Passenger Transport Board from its creation in 1933 until 1940. Pick had a strong interest in design and its use in public life, under his direction, the UERLs Underground network and associated bus services expanded considerably reaching out into new areas and stimulating the growth of Londons suburbs. His impact on the growth of London between the wars led to him being likened to Baron Haussmann and Robert Moses. Picks interest extended beyond his own organisation, he was a member and later served as President of the Design. He was also the first chairman of the Council for Art and Industry and regularly wrote and lectured on design and urban planning subjects. For the government, Pick prepared the plan for the mass evacuation of civilians from London at the outbreak of war and produced reports on the wartime use of canals. Frank Pick was born on 23 November 1878 at Spalding, Lincolnshire and he was the first child of five born to draper Francis Pick and his wife Fanny Pick. Picks paternal grandfather, Charles Pick, was a farmer in Spalding who died in his forties and his maternal grandfather, Thomas Clarke, was a blacksmith and Wesleyan lay preacher. As a child, Pick was bookish, preferring to read and build collections of moths and butterflies, before becoming a draper, Picks father had had an ambition to become a lawyer and he encouraged his son to follow this career. Pick attended St Peters School in York on a scholarship, but failed to get a scholarship to Magdalen College, instead, he was articled to a York solicitor, George Crombie, in March 1897. He qualified in January 1902 and completed a law degree at the University of London in the same year, in 1902, Pick began working for the North Eastern Railway. He worked first in the companys traffic statistics department before becoming assistant to the general manager. In 1904, Pick married Mabel Mary Caroline Woodhouse, in 1906, Gibb was appointed managing director of the UERL. At Gibbs invitation, Pick also moved to the UERL to continue working as his assistant, ticket prices were low and passenger numbers were significantly below the pre-opening estimates. The lower than expected passenger numbers were partly the result of competition between the UERLs lines and those of the tube and sub-surface railway companies. The spread of electric trams and motor buses, replacing slower, horse-drawn road transport
10.
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
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The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited, known operationally as the Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was also the parent company from 1902 of the District Railway, the UERL is a precursor of todays London Underground, its three tube lines form the central sections of todays Bakerloo, Northern and Piccadilly lines. The UERL struggled financially in the first years after the opening of its lines, a policy of expansion by acquisition was followed before World War I, so that the company came to operate the majority of the underground railway lines in and around London. It also controlled large bus and tram fleets, the profits from which subsidised the financially weaker railways, in the 1920s, competition from small unregulated bus operators reduced the profitability of the road transport operations, leading the UERLs directors to seek government regulation. The first deep-level tube railway, the City & South London Railway, construction had started on one other line and then stopped following a financial crisis. The rest of the companies were struggling to raise funding, the District Railway was a sub-surface underground railway which had opened in 1868. Its steam-hauled services operated around the Inner Circle and on branches to Hounslow, Wimbledon, Richmond, Ealing, Whitechapel, by 1901, the DR was struggling to compete with emerging motor bus and electric tram companies and the CLR which were eroding its passenger traffic. To become more competitive, the DR was contemplating a programme of electrification and it also had parliamentary approval for a congestion-relieving deep-level line that was to run beneath its existing route between Gloucester Road and Mansion House. Yerkes had unsuccessfully attempted to bribe the city council and Illinois state legislature into granting him a 100-year franchise for the tramway system, following a public backlash, he sold his Chicago investments and turned his attention to opportunities in London. Yerkes first acquisition in London was the Charing Cross, Euston, Perks was also a large shareholder in Yerkes next target, the Metropolitan District Railway, usually known as the District Railway or DR. By March 1901, the syndicate had acquired a controlling interest in the DR, Yerkes established the Metropolitan District Electric Traction Company on 15 July 1901 with himself as managing director. The company raised £1 million to carry out the works including the construction of the generating station. In September 1901, Perks became the DRs chairman, the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway was a tube railway company which had been purchased by the DR in 1898, but had remained a separate financial entity. It had permission to construct a line from South Kensington to Piccadilly Circus, at South Kensington it was to connect to the deep level line planned by the DR. On 12 September 1901, the DR-controlled board of the B&PCR sold the company to the MDETC, in the same month, the B&PCR took over the Great Northern and Strand Railway, a tube railway with permission to build a line from Strand to Finsbury Park. The routes of the B&PCR and GN&SR were subsequently linked and combined with part of the DRs tube route to create the Great Northern, Piccadilly, Yerkes final purchase was the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway in March 1902 for £360,000. The BS&WR had permission to construct a line from Paddington to Elephant & Castle and, unlike his other tube railway purchases, construction work had started in 1898. With a varied collection of companies under his control, Yerkes established the UERL in April 1902 to take control of all and manage the planned works
11.
Hudson's Bay Company
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The Hudsons Bay Company, commonly referred to as The Bay, is a Canadian retail business group. HBCs head office is in the Simpson Tower in Toronto, Ontario, the company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol HBC. It was once the worlds largest landowner, with the area of the Hudson Bay watershed, known as Ruperts Land, having 15% of North American acreage. From its long-time headquarters at York Factory on Hudson Bay, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English, undertaking early exploration, its traders and trappers forged relationships with many groups of aboriginal peoples. Its network of trading posts formed the nucleus for later official authority in areas of Western Canada. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a business selling everything from furs to fine homeware. They quickly introduced a new type of client to the HBC – one that shopped for pleasure and not with skins, in July 2008, HBC was acquired by NRDC Equity Partners, which also owns the upmarket American department store Lord & Taylor. From 2008 to 2012, the HBC was run through a company of NRDC, Hudsons Bay Trading Company. Since 2012, the HBC directly oversees its Canadian subsidiaries Hudsons Bay and Home Outfitters, on 29 July 2013, the HBC announced its takeover of Saks, Inc. operator of the Saks Fifth Avenue brand. The merger was completed on 3 November 2013, in September 2015, HBC acquired the German department store chain Galeria Kaufhof and its Belgian subsidiary from Metro Group for $3.2 billion U. S. In May 2016, HBC announced it would expand to the Netherlands by taking over up to 20 former Vroom & Dreesmann sites by 2017, v&D was an historic Dutch department store chain that went bankrupt and shut down in early 2016. HBC said the expansion would cost CAD $340 million and create 2,500 jobs in the stores, the Dutch stores would operate under the Hudsons Bay and Saks Off Fifth brands. In January 2016, HBC announced it would also expand deeper in the space with its acquisition of online flash sales site. In the 17th century the French had a de facto monopoly on the Canadian fur trade with their colony of New France. Assuming this was Hudson Bay, they sought French backing for a plan to set up a trading post on the Bay, despite this refusal, in 1659 Radisson and Groseilliers set out for the upper Great Lakes basin. A year later returned with premium furs, evidence of the potential of the Hudson Bay region. Subsequently, they were arrested for trading without a licence and fined, determined to establish trade in the Hudson Bay, Radisson and Groseilliers approached a group of businessmen in Boston, Massachusetts to help finance their explorations. The Bostonians agreed on the plans merits but their speculative voyage in 1663 failed when their ship ran into pack ice in Hudson Strait, boston-based English commissioner Colonel George Cartwright learned of the expedition and brought the two to England to raise financing
12.
Bank of England
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The Bank of England, formally the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world, after the Sveriges Riksbank, and it was established to act as the English Governments banker and is still one of the bankers for the Government of the United Kingdom. The Bank was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until it was nationalised in 1946, in 1998, it became an independent public organisation, wholly owned by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of the government, with independence in setting monetary policy. The Banks Monetary Policy Committee has a responsibility for managing monetary policy. The Banks Financial Policy Committee held its first meeting in June 2011 as a macro prudential regulator to oversee regulation of the UKs financial sector, the Banks headquarters have been in Londons main financial district, the City of London, on Threadneedle Street, since 1734. It is sometimes known by the metonym The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street or The Old Lady, the busy road junction outside is known as Bank junction. Until 2016, the bank provided banking services as a popular privilege for employees. Englands crushing defeat by France, the dominant naval power, in naval engagements culminating in the 1690 Battle of Beachy Head, England had no choice but to build a powerful navy. No public funds were available, and the credit of William IIIs government was so low in London that it was impossible for it to borrow the £1,200,000 that the government wanted. To induce subscription to the loan, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of the Governor, the Bank was given exclusive possession of the governments balances, and was the only limited-liability corporation allowed to issue bank notes. The lenders would give the government cash and issue notes against the government bonds, the £1. 2m was raised in 12 days, half of this was used to rebuild the navy. This helped the new Kingdom of Great Britain – England and Scotland were formally united in 1707 – to become powerful, the power of the navy made Britain the dominant world power in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The establishment of the bank was devised by Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, the plan of 1691, which had been proposed by William Paterson three years before, had not then been acted upon. The Royal Charter was granted on 27 July through the passage of the Tonnage Act 1694, the first governor was Sir John Houblon, who is depicted in the £50 note issued in 1994. The charter was renewed in 1742,1764, and 1781, the Bank moved to its current location in Threadneedle Street in 1734, and thereafter slowly acquired neighbouring land to create the edifice seen today. When the idea and reality of the National Debt came about during the 18th century, the 1844 Bank Charter Act tied the issue of notes to the gold reserves and gave the Bank sole rights with regard to the issue of banknotes. Private banks that had previously had that right retained it, provided that their headquarters were outside London, a few English banks continued to issue their own notes until the last of them was taken over in the 1930s. Scottish and Northern Irish private banks still have that right, the bank acted as lender of last resort for the first time in the panic of 1866
