BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The invention of a “lender of last resort” The second innovation is the idea of central banks as a “lender of last resort.” In 1861, the year that the treaty of amity and commerce between Germany and Japan was concluded, Walter Bagehot became editor-in-chief of The Economist magazine in England.
As you probably know, he later wrote a famous book, Lombard Street, a treatise on the best central bank practices, providing the first-ever systematic analysis of the roles of a central bank.