South Sea Bubble: the shoemaker’s son who sparked Britain’s first financial crisis
The Story of Money
Manuela Saragosa
4.4 • 409 Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2026
⏱️ 52 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
In 1720, the South Sea Company was one of the most valuable businesses in Britain until a spectacular collapse in its publicly traded shares triggered the country’s first major stock market crisis. At the centre of the story was John Blunt, a shoemaker’s son who rose through the ranks of the financial world to become one of the company’s key architects. In this episode, hosts Robin Wigglesworth and Gillian Tett speak to Professor Thomas Levenson about the speculation and financial engineering that inflated the South Sea Bubble, the strange copycat schemes it inspired and how its dramatic fallout helped reshape modern finance, while leaving Blunt disgraced and forever associated with one of history’s most notorious financial crashes.
Further reading:
Money for Nothing: South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism (2020), by Thomas Levenson. Levenson’s latest book is A Pox on Fools: The Grifters and Sinners Who Want Us to Reject Vaccines (2026).
Credits: Getty Images
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Hosts: Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth
Producer: Lulu Smyth
Senior Producers: Michela Tindera and Laurence Knight
Executive Producer: Manuela Saragosa
Original music and sound design: Breen Turner
Broadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros Giuompasis
Podcast Development: Laura Clarke
FT Global Head of Audio: Flo Phillips
Video editor: Josh Divney and Kristen Kenyon at Podcast Discovery
Learn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at thestoryofmoney@ft.com.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was the first time. |
| 0:02.0 | People didn't know what was happening. |
| 0:04.0 | Do you see these kind of episodes of mania |
| 0:07.0 | as being intrinsic to capitalism? |
| 0:09.0 | I mean, one of the things about the Sussi bubble itself |
| 0:12.0 | is it's almost always told as a morality tale. |
| 0:15.0 | Look at what greed does for you, |
| 0:17.0 | drives you mad, it ruins nations and so forth. |
| 0:20.0 | You know, it reflects the badness of the individuals involved and the system. |
| 0:23.6 | Today on the story of money, one of the most notorious financial crashes in history. |
| 0:41.8 | The scene is autumn 1720 and we're in London in this tiny quaint cobble street called Exchange Alley. |
| 0:50.0 | It's now called Change Alley and it's just 10 minutes walk away from the Financial Times headquarters where I am right now. |
| 0:56.5 | But it was once a thriving hub where jobbing traders gathered in Jonathan's coffee house to buy and sell shares. |
| 1:03.7 | And on this particular morning in 1720, it was absolutely chockerblock. |
| 1:09.0 | Because the news has emerged that the South Sea Company's share price has fallen below 150 pounds, which is down a whopping 90% from their peak in the summer. |
| 1:20.7 | Yes, we are going to be talking about the South Sea Company. |
| 1:24.5 | Thousands and thousands have lost their savings. From working class shopkeepers and |
| 1:29.7 | footmen to some of the great thinkers of the era like Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley, |
| 1:35.3 | even King George himself has lost money. And people are angry. They want somebody to blame. |
| 1:43.1 | And like any good disaster movie, there is a person in |
| 1:47.8 | particular in the frame who's called John Blunt. And he was the architect of the South Sea Company. |
| 1:54.5 | He was a shoemaker's son who'd risen up the social ranks to become the head of the most powerful |
... |
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