Overstone

Overstone, SAMUEL JONES LOYD, BARON, an economist and financier, was born in London, 25th September 1796, being the only son of Mr Lewis Loyd, descended from a respectable Welsh family, and a leading partner in an eminent banking-house. From Eton he passed to Trinity College, Cambridge. On leaving Cambridge Loyd entered his father's banking-house, afterwards merged in the London and Westminster Bank. He entered parliament in 1819 as Whig member for Hythe, which he continued to represent till 1826, and in 1850 was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Overstone and Fotheringhay. The first of Lord Overstone's famous tracts on the management of the Bank of England and the state of the currency was published in 1837, and was followed by others between that period and 1857. The proposal for making a complete separation between the banking and issue departments of the Bank of England, introduced by Peel into the Act of 1844, was first brought forward in these tracts. Lord Overstone was currently believed to have been worth £6,000,000 or £8,000,000, but after his death, without male issue living, on 17th November 1883, his personal estate was sworn under £2,118,803. He zealously opposed the principle of limited liability, and the introduction of the decimal system.