EARLIER WAR FUNDS
The many subscriptions which have been raised for Spitfires, comments Lucio in the Manchester Guardian, had an interesting parallel in the eighteenth century, when the Grand Jury of Suffolk collected the sum of £17,500 to build a ship of the line. This ardour for the defence of Britain was soon to prove contagious. The King himself on January 30, 1798, gave £20,000 from his privy purse as a "free gift." ' It became a custom for the managers of many theatres to give a benefit for the "ship's fund" on the first and last nights of the season. The Bank of England took up the popular cause and raised nearly £200,000. By the end of September, 1798, it was calculated that the public had subscribed the then enormous sum of £1,500,000 for the,cause of home defence.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 24491, 27 December 1940, Page 6
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138EARLIER WAR FUNDS Otago Daily Times, Issue 24491, 27 December 1940, Page 6
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