Ian Hislop: When Bankers Were Good

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Ian Hislop reveals how many Victorian financiers were far from comfortable about their new-found riches, prompting them to give much of it away. Among the characters he profiles are self-made millionaire George Peabody, a merchant banker who managed to overturn his Scrooge-like reputation with a surprising donation, and Samuel Gurney, whose wealth helped the work of his sister Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer immortalised on today's five pound note.

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