DOCSLIB.ORG

Joint-Stock Banking in the English

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Joint-Stock Banking in the English Joint-StockBanking in the English Provinces 1826-1857: To Branch or Not to Branch? Lucy Newton' SchoolofHistory, University ofEast Angh•, UK P.L. Contell DepartmentofEconomic and Sodal History, University ofLeicester, UK From an almostglobal review of bankingstructures, Wilson discerned three trends:a "gradualreduction in the numberof...units"; "a growth in...averagesize"; and "a morewidespread resort to" branching[Wilson, 1986, pp. 1-4]. However,he acknowledgedthat regionaland local bankinghas continuedto haveimportance within Europe. Wilson paid little heedto the state'srole, but Cameronhas emphasizedin an historicalapproach the significanceof legislationfor bankingstructures and their performance [1970, pp. 9-10].This paperaccepts that, with regardto Englandand Wales, joint- stockbanking's early growth was strongly influenced by the timingof liberal- izinglegislation. Yet, otherfactors led to the persistenceof a largenumber of unit banks until the 1880s. Joint-stockbanking, permitted from 1826,involved greater branching thanprivate banking. A minorityof privatecountry banks had branched with, by 1813,some indications of expansionas 761 bankshad at least922 regular offices[Pressnell, 1956, p. 126].However, corporate networks' initial growth from1826 also occurred slowly and, in 1857,the average number of officesper joint-stockbank was only 6.7 (2.1for privatecountry banks) [Nishimura, 1971, p. 80]. Althoughspearheaded by a few, ambitiousbank boards, branching confrontedconsiderable managerial and informational difficulties. Hitherto, the arisinghesitancy has attracted little attention [Munn, 1997]. Thus, the following is an almost exploratoryinvestigation of post-1826English and Welsh corporatebranch banking, which also debates with Munn over shaping factors. It drawsupon the internalevidence of banksthat had considerable longevity and alsoemploys the BankersAlmanac [BA] and the Circularto Bankers[CB]. ' This drawsfrom someof the findingsof a LeverhulmeTrust-funded project "The constituenciesof English and Welsh joint stock banks, 1825 to c.1885"and we aregrateful for the supportso generouslyprovided. We wishto thankSara Kinsey and Edwin Green (MidlandBank Archives); Susan Snell and Fiona McColl (NatWest Archives); Alison Turton and PhilipWinterbottom (Royal Bank of ScotlandArchives); and ThomasBucke for their help in writing this paper.Thanks also to the participantsof the BusinessHistory Conferencesession in Marylandfor theirhelpful comments and advice, and to the British Academyfor providingfinance to attendthis meeting. BUS•XIE$$AND ECONOMIC HISTORY, VolumeTwenty-seven, no.1, Fall1998. Copyright¸1998 bythe Business History Conference. ISSN 0894-6825. 115 116 / LUCY NEWTON AND P.L. COTTRELL Particularattention is paid to Yorkshire,where banking encompassed both unit institutionsand corporate managements which established regional networks. The LegislativeSpur The expansionof joint-stockbanking was markedby promotional waves,each facilitated by reformingstatutes. The draftersof the 1826Act aimedto stabRiseEnglish banking and reasoned that banks were more likely to withstand"runs" with greatercapitals. Consequently, the 1826 legislation allowedbanks with morethan six partners and freely-transferable shares to be establishedbeyond a 65-mileradius of London.It resultedin 117 provincial joint-stockbanks being in businessby 1843,and 98 in 1857.Medium-term economiccircumstances - the mid-1830s cyclical upswing - alsoplayed a part, with the formationrate becoming "manic" during 1836, when at least59 new institutionswere projected. This "mania"had its epicentrein Lancashireand Yorkslake[CB, 407, 6 May 1836]. The 1826Act waspassed after campaigning by supportersof joint- stock,branch banking who pointedto its successin Scotland,a countrywith a differentlegal code and financial system. There branching had been established from the 1770sby both Edinburgh"public banks" and privateprovincial bankingcompanies [Cameron, 1967; Checkland, 1975; Munn, 1981]. However, joint-stockbanks "proper" only began to be formedin Scotlandfrom 1810, not fullydeveloping until the 1830s.Thus, to a considerabledegree, the adop- tionof joint-stockbanking moved together north and south of Hadrian'sWall. Concemsover the ever-growingnumber of Englishand Welsh joint- stockbanks, especially their increasinglyspeculative character, were fixst expressedin 1832.Joint-stock bankers in Liverpooland Manchester called for stricterregulation, involving branches more than 12 milesfrom headoffices beingindependent banks and, thereby under their scheme, having capitals of at leastœ50,000. Rising anxieties led W'tlliamClay, who favouredeven greater regulation,to obtaina selectcommittee for investigatingbanks' affairs [CB, 407, 6 May 1836].• This parliamentaryaction resulted in the bankingboom's feverabating from May 1836.Furthermore, the Northern& CentralBank's suddenand spectacular collapse in mid-1836,after rapidly opening 36 branches to be regardedas the"boom bank," gave all the necessarygrounds for Clay's inquiry[CB, 289, 31 Jan.1834; 291, 14 Feb. 1834;319, 29 Aug. 1834;Jones, 1971]. Its adversecriticisms were reiteratedby a further SelectCommittee during1840-1. Thesetwo selectcommittees' hearings paved the way for Peel's restrictiveJoint Stock Banking Act of 1844.Furthermore, his Bank Charter Act of 1844froze the volume of noteissues of Englishand Welsh provincial banks, corporateand private,and containedmeasures for eventuallyextinguishing • Claywas the LiberalMember of Parliamentfor Tower Hamletsfrom 1832and held the seat until 1857. The son of an eminentLondon merchant,he becamethe Chairman of theGrand Junction Railway, and of theSouthwark and Vauxhall water companies. JOINT-STOCKBANKING IN THE ENGLISHPROVINCES / 117 privatefights to issuebank notes. This legislation, it has been argued, inhibked furtherbranching in Englandand Walesas one majormotive for opening brancheshad been to increaseoutlets for circulatingbank notes. The Transformationof YorkshireBanking Yorkshirewas the largest English county and had a diversifiedeconomy duringthe mid-nineteenthcentury. In manyrespects, it mirroredthat of the nationas a whole,although possibly having a greaterweight of the new, stmcturally-transformed industries. The expandingneeds of commerceand tradehad led to the early developmentof formalizedbanking in Yorkshire[Roth, 1914]. By 1800most townsin thecounty had one, if not several,private banks, amounting to at least 50 in all.These issued notes while their assets came from servicing the trades of the districtsin whichthey were individually located [Hudson, 1981]. However, they sufferedfrom repeatedinstability and failure,especially in industrial districts,and thereby gained an unenviable reputation. The countywas severely affectedby the 1825/6 crisis,particularly marked by significantruns that resultedin substantiallosses for depositors.Promoters of thenew banks seized upon this situation,with the foundersof the HuddersfieldBanking Co. declaringthat joint-stock banking wood be: well calculatedto preventa recurrenceof thoseindividual losses andconsequent distress which this district has so often suffered fromthe repeatedfailures of theprivate banking establishments therebyretarding the growing prosperity of a placeotherwise so well calculatedfrom its localadvantages to becomeone of the firstcommercial eminence [M]3A H4, HBC, 22Jan.1827]. Beginningwith the HuddersfieldBanking Co., 24 joint-stockbanks were formedin Yorkshirebetween 1827 and 1843,with three entirelynew institutionsestablished after the 1836 crisis (see Table 1, below).Consequently, by 1845,both joint-stockand privatebanks coexisted, although the former weremore important, measured by capitaland volume of business.There were 25 privatebanks with 11 branches,and 24 joint-stockinstitutions having 49 branches,but branchingwas restricted to onlysome of theseinstitutions as 19 privateand me joint-stockbanks had no satelliteoffices [BA, 1845]. This gave an arrayin 1845,ranging from local banking, sometimes with a fewbranches, at onepole to, at theother, two "district" banks each with county-wide networks. With thisstructure, Yorkshire provides a meaningfulcase of initialpost-1826 branchingdevelopments. EstablishingBranches The followingsections will examinewhy, and how, brancheswere established;the businessof branches;the problemsof branchmanagement; and,finally, why English and Welsh corporate banks were, on thewhole, slow 118 / LUCY NEW'rON AND P.L. COTTRELL to establishnetworks. These issues are consideredwith regardto both local banksthat characterizedthe nationalsystem and the few larger,"district"/ regionalinstitutions. Points will be augmented with Yorkshire examples. First,it is importantto establishwhat constituted a branch throughout the nineteenthcentre T. But thisis no easytask. There appears to havebeen litfie differentiationbetween branches, sub-branches and agencies.Indeed, all were simplyreferred to as offices,which was also the casein Scoffand.A branchmight be a roomfor businessone day a week,sometimes termed an agencyor sub-branch.Others had dedicated premises, opened every business day,yet wereclassified alongside "rooms" solely servicing market days. The step-upin costsfrom renting a roomto acquiringa specific building was quite considerable.However, the •ypesof business,if not the volumes,undertaken at theselocations wer!•largely the same. Even as late as 1914, this diversity per- sisted:"The proportionof officesnot openeddaily has increased in England and Wales.From beingabout one-twelfth
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Chronology, 1963–89
    Chronology, 1963–89 This chronology covers key political and economic developments in the quarter century that saw the transformation of the Euromarkets into the world’s foremost financial markets. It also identifies milestones in the evolu- tion of Orion; transactions mentioned are those which were the first or the largest of their type or otherwise noteworthy. The tables and graphs present key financial and economic data of the era. Details of Orion’s financial his- tory are to be found in Appendix IV. Abbreviations: Chase (Chase Manhattan Bank), Royal (Royal Bank of Canada), NatPro (National Provincial Bank), Westminster (Westminster Bank), NatWest (National Westminster Bank), WestLB (Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale), Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi Bank) and Orion (for Orion Bank, Orion Termbank, Orion Royal Bank and subsidiaries). Under Orion financings: ‘loans’ are syndicated loans, NIFs, RUFs etc.; ‘bonds’ are public issues, private placements, FRNs, FRCDs and other secu- rities, lead managed, co-managed, managed or advised by Orion. New loan transactions and new bond transactions are intended to show the range of Orion’s client base and refer to clients not previously mentioned. The word ‘subsequently’ in brackets indicates subsequent transactions of the same type and for the same client. Transaction amounts expressed in US dollars some- times include non-dollar transactions, converted at the prevailing rates of exchange. 1963 Global events Feb Canadian Conservative government falls. Apr Lester Pearson Premier. Mar China and Pakistan settle border dispute. May Jomo Kenyatta Premier of Kenya. Organization of African Unity formed, after widespread decolonization. Jun Election of Pope Paul VI. Aug Test Ban Take Your Partners Treaty.
    [Show full text]
  • Banking in Cark-In Cartmel
    An undated photograph produced by the firm of Woolfall & Eccles (later T M Alexander & Son), architects of the Midland Bank, 119, Station Rd. Cark in Cartmel1 Banking in Cark-in Cartmel In today's high street the bank is becoming a rarity and 2017 will see the closure of another branching the Cartmel Peninsula; the National Westminster Bank in Main Street, Grange over Sands.2The banks are leaving the small market town high street but in the late nineteenth and for the first half of the twentieth century they were part of the local landscape in not only market towns, but even villages and hamlets such as Cark in Cartmel. Until 1826, banks were essentially private merchant banks but the Bank Act of 1826 permitted joint stock banks of issue with unlimited liability to be established. The Lancaster Banking Co. was one such bank which was set up in 1826 and existed until 1907 when it was taken over. For over seventy years, the hamlet of Cark in Cartmel, Cumbria had three banks ; the Lancaster Banking Co. which according to the Bulmer's Directory of 19113 was located at Bank House, Station Rd. and opened initially on Fridays ; the York City and County Banking Co. which became 1 HSBC archives April 18th 2017 2 The Westmorland Gazette, Thursday, March 31st. 2017 3 Bulmer's Directory of 1911. the London and Joint Stock Bank Ltd. was also located at 119 Station Rd. ; and the Bank of Liverpool and Martin's Ltd. which was located opposite at 114 Station Rd. All three banks were characterised by the fact that the banking premises occupied only one room of the building that they occupied and in addition were staffed by one member of staff , which in the case of the Midland and Martin's banks was the bank manager from either the Ulverston or Grange branch.
    [Show full text]
  • The Headquarters of National Provincial Bank of England
    Symbolism in bank marketing and architecture: the headquarters of National Provincial Bank of England Article Published Version Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY) Open Access Barnes, V. and Newton, L. (2019) Symbolism in bank marketing and architecture: the headquarters of National Provincial Bank of England. Management and Organizational History, 14 (3). pp. 213-244. ISSN 1744-9359 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2019.1683038 Available at http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/86938/ It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the work. See Guidance on citing . To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2019.1683038 Publisher: Taylor and Francis All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law, including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in the End User Agreement . www.reading.ac.uk/centaur CentAUR Central Archive at the University of Reading Reading’s research outputs online Management & Organizational History ISSN: 1744-9359 (Print) 1744-9367 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmor20 Symbolism in bank marketing and architecture: the headquarters of National Provincial Bank of England Victoria Barnes & Lucy Newton To cite this article: Victoria Barnes & Lucy Newton (2019) Symbolism in bank marketing and architecture: the headquarters of National Provincial Bank of England, Management & Organizational History, 14:3, 213-244, DOI: 10.1080/17449359.2019.1683038 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2019.1683038 © 2019 The Author(s).
    [Show full text]
  • Name of Deceased
    Date before which Name of Deceased Address, description and date of death of Deceased Names, addresses and descriptions of Persons to whom notices of claims are to be given notices of claim (Surname first) • and names, in parentheses, of Personal Representatives ' ' to be given LLOYD, May Emily Kenwyn Lodge, Western Road, Fortis Green, National Provincial Bank Limited, 8 Howland Street, Tottenham Court Road, London 28th August 1964 Middlesex, Spinster. 8th June 1964. W.I. (092) PHILLIPS, Mary Flat 3, St. John's Court, Westcliff Parade, Westcliff- Howard Kennedy & Co., 23 Harcourt House, 19 Cavendish Square, London W.I. 3rd September 1964 on-Sea, Essex, Widow. 14th October 1963. (David Crystall and Harry Howard, LL.B.) (093) WARD, Constance Annie 8 Calverley Park, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Widow, Burton & Ramsden, 81 Piccadilly, London W.I, Solicitors. (James Hildebrand'Ramsden 28th August 1964 Henrietta. llth November 1963. and Jack Bridgeland.) (094) H W SCHOFIELD, William 35 Fitzmauriae Road, Christchurch, Hampshire, Barrington Myers & Partners, Lloyds Bank Chambers, Christchurch, Hampshire, 28th August 1964 1 Arthur. Pilot. 18th February 1964. Solicitors. (Mary Dorothy Anne Schofield.) (095) r o TURNER, Maud Violet The Nosegay, Abersoch, Caernarvonshire, Spinster. Robyns Owen & Son, 36 High Street, Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire, Solicitors. (National 29th August 1964 Breen. 26th May 1964. Provincial Bank Limited.) (096) THOMPSON, Thojnas ... 108 Ponteland Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, General National Provincial Bank Limited, Trustee Branch, 26 Mosley Street, Newcastle upon 27th August 1964 Dealer. 6th June 1964. Tyne. (097) NEILLY, William John... 95 St. Ladoc Road, Keynsham, Bristol, Retired National Provincial Bank Limited, Trustee Branch, 36 Corn Street, Bristol 1, or 27th August 1964 I Clerk.
    [Show full text]
  • Heritage Statement
    Heritage Statement Overview The application is for the refurbishment and reconfiguration of the existing NatWest Bank located at 21 EastGate Street Standishsgate, Gloucester. NatWest’s first branch in Gloucester originally opened as a branch of National Provincal Bank of England in 1834. Gloucester at this time was a manufacturing centre with extensive dockyards, and was known for its pin-making industry. The city was also home to a growing number of iron foundries producing agricultural and milling implements for the surrounding area. The population of Gloucester had been increasing steadily throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and by 1831 the city had over 14,000 inhabitants. National Provincial Bank of England had been founded in London in September 1833. From the outset it intended to establish a nationwide network of branches, and Gloucester was to be its very first. The branch opened in King Street on 1 January 1834. It was an immediate success, and even though the traditional industries in the city began to decline in the middle part of the nineteenth century, the construction trades flourished. Following the coming of the railway to Gloucester in 1840, the city also became known for the manufacture of railway carriages. By 1843 increasing demand for banking services in Gloucester meant that the branch had outgrown its original King Street premises. A new purpose-built branch building was erected in Westgate Street, completed in 1844. The branch’s business continued to grow rapidly throughout the nineteenth century, and in 1890 it relocated again to more spacious newly-constructed premises at 21 Eastgate Street.
    [Show full text]
  • THE BELFAST GAZETTE, 15Th MAY, 1953, EXCHANGE CONTROL ACT, 1947 Lazard Brothers & Co., Ltd
    114 THE BELFAST GAZETTE, 15th MAY, 1953, EXCHANGE CONTROL ACT, 1947 Lazard Brothers & Co., Ltd. Amendments to Bank of England E.G. Securities Lloyds and National Provincial Foreign Bank, Ltd. Lloyds Bank, Ltd. Notices Nos. 6 and 7, which were published as a Martins Bank, Ltd. supplement to the "London Gazette" of 29th July, Mercantile Bank of India, Ltd. 1947. Midland Bank, Ltd. In pages 7 and 8 of B.C. (Securities) 6, delete Montagu 6 Co., Ltd., Samuel. Appendix II and substitute the attached revised Ap- Morgan Grenfell & Co., Ltd. pendix II, dated 12th May, 1953. Moscow Narodny Bank, Ltd. • Bank of England. Munster and Leinster Bank, Ltd. 12th May, 1953. National Bank, Ltd. ' APPENDIX II (Revised) National Bank of Australasia, Ltd. National Bank of Egypt. AUTHORISED DEPOSITARIES National Bank of Greece and Athens. In addition to the Bank of England, and the Share National Bank of India, Ltd. and Loan Department of the Stock Exchange, London, National Bank of New Zealand. offices in the United Kingdom of the following banks: National Bank of Scotland, Ltd. National City Bank of New York. American Express Company, Inc. National Provincial Bank, Ltd. Anglo-Portuguese Colonial and Overseas Bank, Ltd. Netherlands Bank of South Africa, Ltd. Australia and New Zealand Bank, Ltd. Northern Bank, Ltd. Banco de Bilbao. Ottoman Bank. Bank Leumi le-Israel, B. M. Provincial Bank of Ireland, Ltd. Bank of Adelaide. Reserve Bank of India. Bank of American National Trust and bavmgs Rothschild & Sons, N. M. Association. Royal Bank of Canada. Bank of British West Africa. Royal Bank of Scotland.
    [Show full text]
  • Here Could Be a Recognition Only of What I Have Called External Goods […]
    Competition and the London Clearing Banks, 1946-1979 Linda Arch © [email protected] The Court Room, The Bank of England https://www.flickr.com/photos/ba nkofengland/6220545302, accessed 3 May, 2015 1 Should Nation States Compete? 25-26 June 2015 Structure 1. Introduction 2. Context 3. Attitudes towards competition in clearing banking - ambivalence 4. Attitudes towards competition in clearing banking - embracing competition 5. Discussion and questions 2 Should Nation States Compete? 25-26 June 2015 1. INTRODUCTION 3 Should Nation States Compete? 25-26 June 2015 Alasdair MacIntyre Credit: Sean. https://www.flickr.com/p hotos/seanoconnor365/33 51618688 4 Should Nation States Compete? 25-26 June 2015 Introduction • “without the virtues there could be a recognition only of what I have called external goods […]. And in any society which recognised only external goods competitiveness would be the dominant and even exclusive feature.” • Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Third Edition, (Notre Dame, IND: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 196. 5 Should Nation States Compete? 25-26 June 2015 Introduction External goods: • ‘goods of effectiveness’ • profit, money, share price, status, prestige … • property or possession of an individual Internal goods: • ‘goods of excellence’ • achieved in the context of ‘practices’ • benefit the whole community who take part in that practice • Eg. an internal good in clearing banking might be the good of ‘trustworthiness’ 6 Should Nation States Compete? 25-26 June 2015 Introduction
    [Show full text]
  • The Commercial Banking Industry and Its Part in the Emergence
    The Commercial Banking Industry and its part in the emergence and consolidation of the Corporate Economy in Britain before 1940 Journal of Industrial History, 3(2)The (2000) Commercial Banking Industry in Britain before 1940 Peter Wardley University of the West of England, Bristol ‘He did not think the banks had yet explored the enormous possibilities of mechanical methods. He thought the counter work at English banks was about as efficient as they could ever get, but he was suspicious as to whether they were as up to date behind the counter. He could see the banks of the future as possessing physical bodies of wonderfully contrived mechanism, almost everything of routine being done by machinery with the brains for the personal convenience of customers, and scientific conditions of control, a great civil service with a high tradition of public service, with opportunities for development and employment of many different talents. On the other hand, it was conceivable they might develop into mere money making machines.’ John Maynard Keynes, ‘The future opportunities of the bank official’; presented at the Cambridge Centre of the Institute of Banking; reported in the Cambridge Daily News, 15 October 1927; and, reprinted as ‘Mr J. M. Keynes on banking services’ in the Journal of the Institute of Banking, November 1927, vol. xlviii, p. 497. Banks engage in business which is intended to organise the profitable production of financial services and, like other privately-owned firms in a market economy, employ capital and labour to achieve this objective. Furthermore, as in other companies, it is within banks that more efficient combinations of capital and labour generate productivity growth.
    [Show full text]
  • 1914 and 1939
    APPENDIX PROFILES OF THE BRITISH MERCHANT BANKS OPERATING BETWEEN 1914 AND 1939 An attempt has been made to identify as many merchant banks as possible operating in the period from 1914 to 1939, and to provide a brief profle of the origins and main developments of each frm, includ- ing failures and amalgamations. While information has been gathered from a variety of sources, the Bankers’ Return to the Inland Revenue published in the London Gazette between 1914 and 1939 has been an excellent source. Some of these frms are well-known, whereas many have been long-forgotten. It has been important to this work that a comprehensive picture of the merchant banking sector in the period 1914–1939 has been obtained. Therefore, signifcant efforts have been made to recover as much information as possible about lost frms. This listing shows that the merchant banking sector was far from being a homogeneous group. While there were many frms that failed during this period, there were also a number of new entrants. The nature of mer- chant banking also evolved as stockbroking frms and issuing houses became known as merchant banks. The period from 1914 to the late 1930s was one of signifcant change for the sector. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), 361 under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 B. O’Sullivan, From Crisis to Crisis, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96698-4 362 Firm Profle T. H. Allan & Co. 1874 to 1932 A 17 Gracechurch St., East India Agent.
    [Show full text]
  • A “Quiet Victory”: National Provincial, Gibson Hall, and the Switch from Comprehensive Redevelopment to Urban Preservation in 1960S London
    A “Quiet Victory”: National Provincial, Gibson Hall, and the Switch from Comprehensive Redevelopment to Urban Preservation in 1960s London VICTORIA BARNES LUCY NEWTON PETER SCOTT © The Author 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial reuse or in order to create a derivative work. doi:10.1017/eso.2020.35 VICTORIA BARNES is a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Instutite for European Legal History, Frankfurt, Germany. She works on the history of business, its form and regulation in law and society. Her recent work can be read in the Journal of Corporation Law, Hastings Business Law Journal, Company Lawyer, and the Journal of Legal History. Contact information: Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History, Hansaallee 41, Frankfurt am Main, Hesse 60323, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]. LUCY NEWTON is professor of business history at Henley Business School, University of Reading. She has published her work on banks and nineteenth-century consumer durables in a variety of business history journals. Her journal article, with Francesca Carnevali, “Pianos for the People,” was the winner of the Oxford Journals Article Prize for Best Paper in Enterprise and Society (2013), awarded March 2014. Contact information: University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
    [Show full text]
  • Unit 8: Duties, Liabilities and Protection of Bankers in Handling Bills of Exchange
    Unit 8: Duties, Liabilities and Protection of Bankers in Handling Bills of Exchange Payment of Cheques The legal position of a bank paying a cheque may be considered by looking at the contract of the bank with its customer; and the provisions of the Bills of Exchange Act Cap. 68 The legal relationships involving the paying bank may include: • That with its customer • That with some remote true owner of the cheque • That with the collecting bank Item (iii) is covered in Unit 9. Item (i) and (ii) relates to the contract the bank has with its customer as well as the statutory provisions in the BEA. The banker therefore needs to exercise a reasonable degree of care and skill when conducting its customer’s account. The cheque must be validly signed in order for the bank to have evidence of its customer’s authority (Catlin v Cyprus Finance Corporation London Ltd (1983)) to pay, (and in order for it to be covered by the BEA). By s. 2(4)a of the BEA, a cheque need not be dated at all. The paying bank has a right to insert a date under s. 19(1), although in practice, it is safer for the bank to return the cheque unpaid, stating ‘not dated’. By s.12 (2) of the BEA, a post-dated cheque is within the legal definition of a cheque as there is no contradiction with it being payable on demand – Royal Bank of Scotland v Tottenham (1894). Banks in practice do not honour cheques dated more than six months in the past marking them as ‘stale’, and whereas a case may be brought against the bank for dishonouring its customer’s instructions, this would be seen to be an implied term of the Banker/customer contract not to pay six months after date.
    [Show full text]
  • 924 Supplement to the London Gazette, February 25,1880
    924 SUPPLEMENT TO THE LONDON GAZETTE, FEBRUARY 25,1880. NATIONAL PROVINCIAL BANK OF ENGLAND—continued. NAME. RESIDENCE. OCCUPATION. Hands, Mrs. Lucy Ann 35, Northgate-stivet, Bury St. Edmunds Hanham, William 6, Elm-place, Wells-road, Bath Gentleman Hannah, Archibald Talbae, near Creetown, N.B. •Draper Hannah, Thomas Barend Parton, near Castle Douglas, N.B. Gentleman Han n en, John Stoke-on-Trent Clerk Hannen, Miss Sarah Annie Stoke-oti-Trent Hansell, Robert St. Clement's-hill, Norwich Gentleman Hanson, James National -Provincial Bank of England, Bank Accountant Wrexham Hanson, John N. P. Bank, Salisbury Gentleman Hanson, John Oliver Broadwater Down, Tunbridge Wells Esquire Hanson, Miss Mary Annabella 36, Harewood-square, N.W. Hanson, Miss Sarah Jane Wrexham Harden, Miss Hannah Yoxall, Staffordshire Harden, Thomas Ottery St. Mary, Devon Wheelwright Harding, Miss Anna Honiton, Devon Harding, Miss Frances Charlotte Highercorobe, Dulvenon Harding, Caleb Dursley Clerk to Gas Company Harding, James Palmer Dursley Ironmonger Harding, John Dursley Iron Merchant Harding, John, jun. Gossington Hall, nr. Stonehousc, Gloucester Farmer Harding, Mrs. Martha Mount Cottage, Shrewsbury Harding, Mrs. Sarah Arlington House, 18, Pembroke-rd., Clifton Harding, Thomas Westbrook, Weston, near Bath Yeoman Harding, William Kingscote, Gloucestershire Carpenter Hardwick, Albert Tilsdown House, Dursley Gentleman Hardwick, Miss Louisa 6, Clifton-villas, Camden-square Hardwick, Miss Augusta 42, Camden-road, Camdcn Town, N.W. Hardwick, Miss Sarah 6, Clifton-villas, Camden-square, N.W. Hare, Miss Helen Aldersgate-street, Tamworth Hargrave, Abraham Addison Warren-place, Cork Gentleman Harling, John 2, Bank-street, Manchester Underwriter Harling, Miss Sarah 1, Fail-field Hall-road, Handsworth, Bir- mingham Harms,Miss Catherine Elizabeth Suttou House, Heston, near Hounslow, Middlesex Harold, Charles William Inland Reveuue, Liverpool Inland Revenue Officer Harper, Thomas 1, Queen's-road, Peckham, S.E.
    [Show full text]