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150 COMMERCE Suez Canal go from or come to the district superintended by that ancient body, the Thames Conservancy. Of the older trades few are now active in the city, the suburbs having absorbed some of them, and others, like that of the founders, having migrated to distant parts of the country. But the goldsmiths still have their headquarters in Aldersgate; their lineal descendants, the bankers, occupy the foremost place in modern London, of whose streets many palatial places of business form the chief ornaments. The banks of London began with the goldsmiths. We read of one Teodric, that he was a London goldsmith with country estates, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and Otto, another of the trade, is also named in Domesdaybook. Very little later, about 1115, we find a monetarius named Brichmar in a list of aldermen. Otto’s ‘ descendants were of the same profession, and engraved dies for the Mint. As late as the reign of
