Last man standing at the Peebles Tontine

What is a tontine? If you come from Greenock or Peebles this might have crossed your mind as they both have a very fine Georgian Hotel of that name.  The  Tontine Hotel in Peebles, where I had dinner last night, is a cosy, corniced, classy place with minstrel gallery and cobbled courtyard -  just like the Tontine Hotel in Greenock where I'm from and have enjoyed many a family birthday/anniversary dinner.  I learned for the first time in Peebles that a tontine was a very early form of annuity and common in Scotland, England and America in the 19th century. A group of investors pooled their capital and took a profit from the business. But as each one died, the others got his shares until the last survivor inherited the entire business.  The word 'tontine' is derived from the name of Lorenzo de Tonti, an Italian political exile living in France. He proposed the original tontine to Jules Cardinal Mazarin in the early 1650's as a way the French King Louis XIV could raise revenue. The French treasury, battered by the Thirty Years War and the rebellions within France known as the 'Fronde,' needed to raise money.

The idea was widely copied, especially when new industrial wealth of the 19th century created a class of people with money to spend on leisure. It was used to finance municipal improvement - there is an entire Square in Limerick built this way, a cresent in Boston and the building that eventually housed the first New York Stock Exchange. But it has been described as "the most discredited financial instrument in history" (that was clearly before the collapse of Lehmann Bros) Many 19th century novelists constructed plots around the imagined murder of tontine members by one of their evil co-investors, keen to get their hands on the prize. Our programme last night said of the tontine arrangement "not, surprisingly, this is a form of money-raising not used today." Perhaps not, though with the shape the financial system is in right now, we may well have to look at all sorts of strange ways of raising capital! The tontines arose because credit was tight if you didn't already come from a wealthy family or have a sympathetic bank. Significantly, once American President used it to attempt to pay off the National Debt! Plus ca change...

The Peebles establishment is now a family hotel where many a stylish country wedding has taken place - it also welcomes cyclists and walkers. I was there for a St Andrew's dinner run by the SNP constituency Association for Midlothian South, Tweedale and Lauderdale. Christine Grahame is set to take the seat first past the post next time. This will be a huge psychological breakthrough for the party because it will be the first SNP constituency seat in The Scottish Borders. Christine raised an overlooked issue in her speech last night - the thousands of spoiled ballot papers in the 2007 vote because of the new electronic counting system and confusion around the papers. That will be fixed this time around and in very marginal seats like hers, could make all the difference. 

Image of Peebles Tontine by artist Moy MacKay

 

 

 

Comments

[Michael Grieve]

Joan I hate to Disagree but Ms Grahame wont win the seat

[Eric Falconer]

Nice to see you there on Thursday Joan. To think I'm a Border laddie born and bred and never ever thought to ask what "Tontine" meant, even though I always thought it was a curious name.