Humphry Morice (Governor of the Bank of England)

Humphry Morice (c. 1671 – 16 November 1731) was an English merchant, politician and slave trader who served as the governor of the Bank of England. He inherited his father's trading business around the age of eighteen, and learned finance and speculation from an uncle. Placed in Parliament through a cousin's interest in 1713, his Whig politics ultimately provoked a breach with his Tory cousin, and he had to be given another seat in 1722 by Robert Walpole's administration. He rose to be Deputy Governor^[1] and then Governor of the Bank of England in 1727, but unknown to his contemporaries, his fortune was largely fictitious and he was embezzling from the Bank and his daughters' trust fund. He died suddenly in 1731, perhaps having poisoned himself to forestall the discovery of his frauds, and left behind enormous debts.