What name is given to the 1720 collapse linked to the South Sea Company in Britain?

The 1720 collapse linked to the South Sea Company in Britain is called the South Sea Bubble.

The South Sea Company received a government-backed arrangement involving British government debt and promoted expectations of enormous profits from trade with Spanish America. Its shares rose spectacularly in 1720, attracting aristocrats, merchants, and ordinary investors. As confidence weakened, the price collapsed before the end of the year.

The episode became one of the classic examples of an early speculative bubble. Parliament investigated the company and alleged corruption, while prominent figures, including Chancellor of the Exchequer John Aislabie, suffered political consequences. The scandal also damaged public confidence in joint-stock promotion.

The South Sea Bubble is sometimes grouped with the Mississippi Bubble in France, which burst in the same broad period under John Law's financial system. They were separate schemes and separate national episodes. The South Sea collapse was not a modern stock-exchange crash in the electronic sense, but it remains a major landmark in the history of financial speculation.