FOLLOWING recent analysis of Bank of England First World War-era ledgers, a Bordon doctor was named among thousands of investors in a failed wartime-loan scheme.

A spokesman from Queen Mary University London, which carried out the research, said that financing the First World War required the UK Government to borrow the equivalent of a full year’s GDP.

But its effort to raise capital in the bond market was “a spectacular failure”, he said.

The 1914 War Loan scheme raised less than a third of its £350m target and attracted only “a very narrow set of investors”.

This failure and its subsequent cover up has only recently come to light thanks to the London university scrutinising the Bank of England’s ledgers.

Investors in the South East’s sample include: Alexander Sharp & Co, timber merchants on the Isle of Wight; Thomas Minstrell, a barrister from Chiddingstone, Kent, who invested £3,000; and Norman Pringle Tod, a stockbroker from Chislehurst, Kent, who invested £3,800.

And while not chipping in quite such a dizzying sum, Henry Frederick Barley, of Whitehall House, Bordon, purchased £100 of War Loan on December 1, 1914. His occupation is listed as Esquire, MRCS - which usually means Member, Royal College of Surgeons.

The research also shows that the British Government’s initial efforts to pay for the First World War failed to such an extent that the Bank of England had to secretly fund half of the shortfall.

The scheme raised just £91m from the public - less than a third of the £350m target.

These early findings are from a major project on First World War financing, co led by researchers at the university and the Bank of England.

“The fundraising effort was such a failure that the establishment felt compelled to cover it up,” university researcher Norma Cohen said.

“The truth would have led to a collapse in the price of outstanding war loans which would have endangered future capital raising. Had it come to light, it would have been a propaganda coup for the Germans – the great patriotic project to pay for the war was mostly a myth.”

The Government and the Bank of England moved quickly and secretly to plug the gap.

The bank’s chief cashier Sir Gordon Nairn and his deputy Ernest Harvey purchased the outstanding loans in their own names with the bonds then held by the bank on its balance sheet.

To hide the fact that the bank was forced to step in, the bonds were classified as holdings of “other securities” on the books, rather than as holdings of Government securities. To compound the secrecy, Sir Gordon later formally swore a statement that all £350m had been sold to the public.

The failure of the scheme was in stark contrast to the public’s perception of the War Loan effort.

The Government led a propaganda campaign to persuade people that the project had been an overwhelming success.

The Financial Times reported on November 23, 1914 that the scheme was “over subscribed by £250m, and still the applications are pouring in”.