Every Man his Own Broker: Or, A Guide to Exchange-Alley

Thomas Mortimer (1730-1810) is chiefly remembered as a writer on economics. Every Man his Own Broker was first published in 1761, and ran to fourteen editions in the next forty years, this reissue being of the fourth edition. It was based on his own experience of the stock market, which in the first half of the eighteenth century was rapidly developing, but also suffered crises in which many speculators lost heavily. Increasing sales of government stock to pay for foreign wars led to concern, and Mortimer gives practical advice to readers to avoid making mistakes by relying on brokers. The book gives a good picture of how the stock market and the London financial world were operating at this time, although Mortimer’s antipathy to brokers and jobbers is exaggerated. The book contains the first use of the terms ‘bull’ and ‘bear’ to describe types of markets.