The Management of the National Debt of the United Kingdom 1900-1932 (PDF)

This comprehensive and pioneering work describes and analyses how the National Debt of the United Kingdom was managed between the Boer War (1899-1902) and the Great Depression at the beginning of the 1930's. It therefore also spans the expansion of the debt during the Great War of 1914-18 and the struggle to bring its structure and cost under control in the decade and a half following Armistice.
Part I looks at the Victorian and Edwardian background to the national debt. Jeremy Wormell outlines the legal structures and institutional arrangements of nineteenth-century debt management: the nature of the securities, the role of the savings banks, the method of issuing and the Byzantine arrangements for the sinking funds. The book goes on to examine borrowing for the Boer War and how the legacy was brought under control in the following ten years.
Part II shows how the terms of the Treasury's borrowing changed during the Great War and describes how the securities were sold and distributed. Once the US had become a belligerent, the UK became a debtor to the US Treasury, and the author describes the legal, political and personal constraints which produced the Anglo-American contribution to the inter-allied debt problem.
Part III illustrates how the debt to the US treasury was funded into long-term bonds and discusses the terms in the context of the reparations crisis of 1922 and 1923. Internally, the author discusses the relationship of debt management to monetary control and how the short-term and expensive debt inherited from the war was repaid, converted, refinanced and refunded in the decade following the Armistice.
The Management of the National Debt in the United Kingdom is the first definitive work on the subject. Using an impressive array of research, from archives and unpublished material, Jeremy Wormell has brought together material that is unavailable in any other form. It will be an invaluable resource for political and economic historians, as well as economists in general, civil servants, bankers and financial journalists.