Who financed the great expansion of the Victorian equity market, and what attracted them to invest? Using data on 453 firm-years and over 172,000 shareholders, we find that the largest providers of capital were rentiers, men with no formal occupation who relied on investment income. We also see...

Introduction -- The Bubble Act and the First Corporate Economy -- ‘Mr Morice is said to appear at the head’: The Bubble Act and an Aborted Joint-Stock Slave-Trading Company -- ‘That ever-memorable year of epidemical infatuation’: Incorporation, the Jamaica Mines Company, and the Bubble...