Conclusion

Charlatans were viewed mostly ambivalently during the century in Britain, reflecting more a sense of schadenfreude than outright hostility despite their frequent wrecking of investors’ dreams. Merchant Princes, and other financiers, were depicted favourably representing the admiration in which they were held by the ruling elite. The constant recurrence of similar imagery depicting financial crises in the British and foreign periodicals indicates the cross-fertilisation of ideas that took place. The satire was more biting internationally than in the UK, more a result of Victorian sensibilities in the latter. Internationally (especially Germany and France), where Jews were associated with stock exchange transactions, crude caricatures depicted them as representatives of the capitalist system which had spawned the mania for speculation. The book provides a thematic analysis of recurring tropes (Women, The Other) together with a review of the financial iconography of the period and depictions reflecting the public’s increasing interest in the prosecution of white-collar criminals. The result is a multi-layered review of the financial figures and the often- tumultuous events through which they lived. I offer suggestions as to possible research areas ranging from datamining, a deeper review of other visual media such as paintings or photographs, or the study of non-London centric periodicals. In summary, the book provides a complementary approach to traditional academic works on nineteenth-century British financial history. It establishes that visual sources can be used effectively to interpret historical financial events, especially when analysing long periods of time.