NOSTALGIA: Bordon doctor made War Loan of £100

A FORGOTTEN part of the history of the First World War has come to light at the Bank of England.

Financing the war required the UK government to borrow the equivalent of a full year’s GDP. But the 1914 War Loan scheme raised less than a third of its £350m target and attracted only a very narrow set of investors.

An analysis of the Bank of England’s ledgers by researchers at Queen Mary University of London shows 16 per cent of those who contributed came from the south-east of England.

They included Henry Frederick Barley, of Whitehall House, Bordon. His occupation is listed as Esquire, MRCS – probably Member, Royal College of Surgeons. He bought £100 of War Loan on December 1, 1914.