Bank of England

The Bank of England is the financial institution whose stolen £55,000 gives the pursuit of Phileas Fogg its criminal premise and shadows his journey with a question of money, guilt, and reputation. Although the evidence offers little account of the Bank’s internal operations, it establishes its importance through the scale of the theft, the suspicion directed at Fogg, and the public reversal that follows the real robber’s arrest.

The Bank and the Theft

The Bank enters the story as the victim of a theft totaling £55,000. That sum gives the crime weight beyond the immediate chase: Fogg is accused of robbing the Bank, and Fix follows him around the world in the belief that he is pursuing a fugitive. The accusation attaches a criminal meaning to Fogg’s otherwise eccentric journey and makes his return to England consequential in two ways: he must reach London in time to satisfy his wager, but he is also expected to face the authorities.

The Bank’s importance is therefore first presented through what has been taken from it, not through a description of its buildings, staff, or methods. The narration identifies a substantial loss and an institution with the resources to endure it. Fix reflects that the Bank is rich, even as he worries that the expenses generated by the pursuit may make the affair a poor outcome for it. This characterization belongs to Fix’s assessment, not to a reported decision or official calculation by the Bank.

The Theft’s Financial Shadow

As Fix follows Fogg, he totals the costs already associated with the investigation: travel, rewards, trials, bail, elephants, and other charges. By his estimate, these have exceeded £5,000. The list turns the chase into a second ledger running alongside the stolen £55,000. The Bank is the injured party in the original crime, but its presumed interest in recovering the money is complicated by the expense of pursuing the suspected thief across continents.

That estimate grows as the journey continues. Before the final voyage, Fix calculates that more than £7,000 will have been spent by the time the party reaches England, even if Fogg does not throw banknotes into the sea. Later, during Fogg’s dealings with Andrew Speedy, nearly £20,000 has been expended, while Fogg leaves the hull and engine of the vessel to its captain—nearly the craft’s entire value. These figures are not presented as an audited account of the Bank’s finances. They show how the missing money and the costs of the pursuit become entangled in Fix’s thinking, while Fogg’s travel decisions are measured against the enormous personal loss he faces if he misses the wager’s deadline.

The contrast is sharp: £55,000 has been stolen from the Bank, yet Fogg is willing to risk immense sums to keep moving toward London. Fix’s reflection that the Bank is rich offers a pragmatic counterpoint to the scale of those expenditures, but does not erase the theft or establish that the Bank has recovered its money.

Exposure of the Real Robber

The decisive change comes when the real bank robber, James Strand, is arrested in Edinburgh on December 17. The revelation separates the actual crime from Fogg’s journey and overturns the public interpretation of his actions. Three days earlier, Fogg had been regarded as a criminal pursued by police; after Strand’s arrest, he is treated as an honourable gentleman pursuing his unusual wager around the world.

The Bank’s theft thus has consequences beyond the investigation itself. While Fogg is believed to be the robber, his reputation and the public’s interest in his wager are clouded by suspicion. Once Strand is identified and arrested, newspapers return to discussing the wager, previous bettors revive their interest, and the so-called Phileas Fogg bonds become negotiable again. The change does not report the recovery of the £55,000; instead, it resolves the question of Fogg’s guilt and restores the social and financial attention surrounding his attempt.

Narrative Significance

The Bank of England functions as the absent center of a pursuit conducted far from the institution itself. Its stolen funds supply the case Fix believes he is solving, while the expense of that pursuit repeatedly tests the apparent logic of his mission. The novel places a fixed sum at the origin of a journey whose costs escalate through travel, legal proceedings, and Fogg’s extraordinary attempts to reach England on time.

The final distinction is between the Bank’s real loss and the mistaken story told about Fogg. The arrest of James Strand corrects the attribution of the crime; it does not make the Bank’s loss disappear. By ending the suspicion without claiming that the money has been recovered, the narrative keeps the institution’s role precise: the Bank is the victim that sets the chase in motion, while Fogg’s restored reputation and wager become the most visible consequences of learning who actually robbed it.