3-074-768 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Lord Overstone, 1883. '...this nobleman, who was known to the last generation as Mr. Jones Loyd,...was long esteemed the greatest contemporary authority upon questions affecting the currency and banking...He was...M.P. for Hythe. It was partly, if not mainly, upon his advice that Sir Robert Peel introduced the Bank Charter Act, by which the Bank of England was made the bank of issue, and the payment of notes in gold was guaranteed by a proportionate reserve of Government securities and bullion...the firm of Jones Loyd and Co...merged into the London and Westminster Bank. Lord Overstone...was one of the Commissioners appointed in 1837 to inquire into the condition of the hand-loom weavers, and he maintained that one way of benefiting their condition would be the repeal of the Corn Laws. He also took great interest in the reform of the Poor Laws, and was chairman of the Irish Famine Commission of 1847. He was also for some time a trustee of the National Gallery...He took a leading part in the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and in 1858 was appointed one of the Commissioners for considering how far it might be practicable and advisable to introduce the decimal coinage...The wealth of Lord Overstone was millions sterling'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.