History of the British national debt

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The history of the British national debt can be traced back to the reign of William III, who engaged a syndicate of City traders and merchants to offer for an issue of government debt, which evolved into the Bank of England. In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British government debt reached a peak of £1 billion (that was more than 200% of GDP). By the beginning of the 20th century the national debt had been gradually reduced to around 30 percent of GDP. However, during World War I, the British government was forced to borrow heavily in order to finance the war effort. The national debt increased from £650m in 1914 to £7.7 billion in 1919. During World War II the government was again forced to borrow heavily in order to finance war with the Axis powers. After the war the debt gradually decreased as a proportion of GDP, but in the 1970s, following a Sterling crisis, the British government was forced to seek help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As the 1980s and 1990s progressed...

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