Londons

After my last little digression I'm minded to talk less about London and more about Londons. All existing alongside each other, on top of each other, under and over each other. Constantly updating itself in order to deal with the changes taking place around itself, sometimes of course initiated within the city itself. Perhaps one of the most important of these changes is marked by a small blue rectangular plaque in a small and obscure sidestreet situated between Cornhill and Lombard Street. The plaque reads "on this street between 1680 and 1778 stood Jonathan's Coffee House, the principal meeting place of the City's stockbrokers". Here it was a little after the Great Fire of London destroyed the old city that new systems of trade and business grew up. These systems have spread across the globe and are now shown in the skylines of the world - the market, modern capitalism started here in this tiny cramped alley. The fact that this was a coffee house is not entirely insignificant. Coffee, one of the commodities that can loosely be bundled together under the title "colonial groceries). These groceries; coffee, tobacco, cotton and most significantly sugar were grown in the West Indies, an area that the powers of the world at the time jealously guarded. The profits to be made from these crops was enormous but the risks were high and the returns not always immediate. What this meant is that a whole raft of ancillary services quickly appeared around these producers; insurance, credit banking and investment houses to share the risk. Underpinning this industry were those who worked and died in enormous numbers in the West Indies, while slavery was a social institution dating back to the classical world however chattel slavery where those subject to the system are effectively treated as just another animal (a belief that was strengthened through pseudo-science), another resource to be exploited. They died throughout misuse, starvation and disease transplanted from Africa as they had no natural immunity to West Indian diseases. While some plantation owners lived in the West Indies many were absentee landlords reaping a reward from their investments. The vast sums made subsidised extravagant lifestyles, they purchased political and social positions. Positions that ensured that they could influence those in power. This also meant hat funds were available for investment in other industries, other trading ventures. Such ventures were orchestrated at places such as Jonathan's Coffee House. Sometimes these were moneymakers. Sometimes, as with the South Sea Bubble... they didn't. In 1748 Jonathan's burnt down. In 1761 a club was formed was formed to trade stocks. In 1773 the club built its on building in Sweetings Alley. This eventually became the institution of upright gentlemen that we call the Stock Exchange