The legal regulation of pawnbroking in England, a brief history

It is fair to say that pawnbrokers have not always enjoyed a very good reputation. In an action of slander brought by a pawnbroker, Holt CJ admitted that, ‘The trade of a broker is an honest lawful trade, though it lies under suspicions.’ The views of one late seventeenth-century writer were not untypical: An unconscionable pawn-broker, I say, is Pluto's Factor, Old Nick's Warehouse-keeper, and English Jew that lives and grows fat on Fraud and Oppression, as Toads on Filth and Venome; whose Practice out-vies Usury, as much as Incest simple Fornication; and to call him a Tradesman, must be by the same Figure that Pickpockets stile their Legerdemain an Art and Mystery. His Shop, like Hellgates, is always open, where he sits at the Receipt of Custom, like Cacus in his Den, ready to devour. Much of the criticism emphasised the supposed immorality of pawnbrokers. But there were more specific allegations too. Pawnbrokers were variously accused of dealing in stolen goods, deliberately understating the value of pawned goods, wearing clothes that were pledged, selling off pledges before they could be redeemed, and charging beyond the maximum permitted rate of interest. These abuses did not come about because of an absence of legal regulation. By the mid eighteenth century, as well as the prohibitions on interest, pawnbroking transactions were also governed by detailed statutory rules.