Bartholomew Lane, in London’s financial district, is where travellers can visit the Bank of England Museum. But the short thoroughfare was once home to the London Stock Exchange, the scene of an 1814 hoax that was as audacious as it was profitable. In February of that year, British Lord Thomas Cochrane and accomplice Captain de Berenger sparked bedlam on England’s financial markets.
Their scam began when de Berenger donned a military costume and told people in Dover, England, he’d arrived from Paris. He said Emperor Napoleon had just been killed, and France was about to be defeated by the Allies, a group of European nations including Great Britain.
The good news spread swiftly. When London’s stock exchange opened the next day, trading boomed. In anticipation of this, Cochrane had stockpiled government bonds, which he immediately sold at a great margin.
Soon, however, Napoleon was proven to be alive, and the financial fraud was exposed. Cochrane was tried, and he attempted, unsuccessfully, to shift blame to de Berenger. He was found guilty and then fled England, leaving a brazen stain on Bartholomew Lane.
Satirical sketch published about the Hoax.
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