The financial crash that created Britain’s first prime minister
The Story of Money
Manuela Saragosa
4.4 • 409 Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
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Summary
When the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, it wiped out fortunes and plunged Britain into its first great stock market crisis. The collapse of the South Sea Company, a government-backed scheme that promised to turn national debt into riches, left the country's finances in disarray and threatened the credibility of the British state itself. Into the chaos stepped Robert Walpole. Charged with restoring confidence, he restructured the government's debts and laid the foundations for Britain's emergence as a financial superpower. In doing so, he became the country's first de facto prime minister, a title he rejected initially because it was widely used as an insult. In this episode, Robin Wigglesworth and Gillian Tett explore Walpole’s rise to power with Thomas Levenson, professor of science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Further reading:
Money for Nothing: The South Sea Bubble and the Invention of Modern Capitalism by Thomas Levenson
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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
FT Head of Audio: Flo Phillips
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 | If you do see him as the first prime minister of Britain, he is, I believe, the longest serving prime minister ever. |
| 0:06.3 | He was there at critical moments in the formation of both Britain's political system and its financial system. |
| 0:12.7 | And yet, I think his reputation is mostly of being, you know, this fat, autocratic, you know, corrupt guy who fell upwards. |
| 0:20.9 | I mean, yeah, he was overweight. |
| 0:22.3 | But other than that, I think he was a remarkable figure in British history. |
| 0:25.9 | I gather that prime minister was actually initially an insult. |
| 0:30.1 | Absolutely. |
| 0:30.7 | And Walpole explicitly rejected that. |
| 0:32.8 | I'm not the prime minister. |
| 0:34.5 | Well, yeah, but, you know, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, you know, maybe it's a duck. |
| 0:48.7 | Today on The Story of Money, we're going to be looking at how Britain's economy |
| 0:53.9 | bounced back after Britain's |
| 0:55.6 | first huge financial crisis in this 1700s, how just one man rode the path of success |
| 1:03.0 | to become Britain's first de facto prime minister. And if you're wondering what this is, |
| 1:09.0 | well, it's the South Sea bubble. |
| 1:11.7 | And the man in the frame who helped Great Britain out of the disaster was Robert Warpole. |
| 1:18.4 | Yeah, so it's April 1721. |
| 1:21.2 | A Robert Walpole has achieved something unprecedented. |
| 1:25.1 | He's taking control of the three most important positions in Britain's government. |
| 1:29.3 | The first time in history, one person held all three of them. He has control of policy, finances, |
| 1:35.5 | and law. He would go on to rule Britain almost single-handedly for the next 20 years. |
| 1:41.6 | And it was the collapse of the South Sea Company, which didn't just topple Britain's |
... |
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