Pawnbroking has been in
existence as a trade since 1690 when the Duke of Lombardy carried out a
pawnbroking business in the Provence of Lombardy, Italy.
The Lombards
assumed the famous emblem:
which had been applied to St. Nicholas as their charitable predeccessor.
 Burns's pawnshop, Millwood and Clayton Streets, Glasgow, 1926. |
The pawnbroker was known in Nineveh, understood in Babylon, existed
in Pompeii and flourished when Greece was in its zenith.
Researchers have found early records of royal pawning. It is said Henry the Third of England pawned a valuable image of the Virgin to pay his officers. Edward the First pawned the customs dues. Edward the Third, having no dues to pawn, deposited his crown on three separate occasions. In 1339 this regular customer pledged his own and his queen's crown at the same time, In 1340 the whole of the crown jewels followed. Henry the Fifth pledged his crown to his uncle the Bishop of Winchester. In 1485 the Earl of Richmond, later to become Henry the Seventh, borrowed money from the French king leaving two live pledges in the persons of the Marquis of Dorset and Sir Thomas Boucher. After winning the crown at Bosworth Field, he borrowed 6,000 marks from the citizens of London and redeemed the gentlemen. |
For reasons I do not fully understand the subject of pawnbroking has been virtually ignored as though it were obscene, yet until very recently the pawn shop was of great, even crucial importance to the working class people all over the British Isles. For generation after generation of poor families life, before the coming of the welfare state, was difficult enough; without the local pawnbroker it would often have been impossible.
Between 1750 and 1850 pawnbroking in the British Isles experienced its
greatest growth.