Before Parliament reformed again in 1867, London had as many as thirty model housing companies. One of them was a housing company called Peabody Trust, founded by an American named George Peabody.
Peabody was plain-looking; no one would have imagined that he was the founder of the Morgan banking consortium. Later Morgan partners all came from prominent families and were known for their beauty and fashion.
He was born in Massachusetts and attended school for only a few years. In his teens, he began working with his older brother to support their widowed mother and six younger siblings. His early poverty shaped his entire life. He loved money as dearly as life itself, like the old miser in A Christmas Carol.
He opened a trading house in London, but it had only one counter, one safe, and a few desks. From the outside, business looked dismal, as though it might close at any moment.
The old miser in A Christmas Carol could not bear to light a fire for warmth. Peabody sent his attendant to buy apples, only one at a time. He gave the attendant two pence, so the attendant could earn a halfpenny tip each time. But Peabody always waited until those halfpennies accumulated to a certain amount before handing them over, then "settled accounts" with the attendant. After deducting this and that, the attendant ended up with nothing but air.
Yet anyone who could push open his shop door was no ordinary person, because Peabody served only governments, major companies, and the wealthy. The proprietor himself had no private carriage and always took public coaches to and from work, occasionally hiring a cab. No outsider could possibly tell that his annual income was 300,000 pounds sterling, thirty times that of Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice.
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