NATIONAL LIFE STORIES CITY LIVES Sir Roger Gibbs Interviewed
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NATIONAL LIFE STORIES CITY LIVES Sir Roger Gibbs Interviewed by Cathy Courtney C409/086 This interview and transcript is accessible via http://sounds.bl.uk. © The British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB United Kingdom +44 (0)20 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators. THE NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION NTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET Title Page ____________________________________________________________________ Ref. No.: C409/86 Playback No.: F3119-F3127; F5223-F5226; F9681-F9683; F12013-F12016 ____________________________________________________________________ Collection title: City Lives ____________________________________________________________________ Interviewee’s surname: Gibbs Title: Sir Interviewee’s forenames: Roger Date of birth: 13th October 1934 Sex: Male ____________________________________________________________________ Date(s) of recording: 21.01.1992; 04.11.1992; 03.02.1993; 20.04.1993; 15.11.1995; 19.04.2001; 11.10.2002 Location of interview: Interviewee’s home and British Library Name of interviewer: Cathy Courtney Type of recorder: Marantz Total no. of tapes: 20 (interview incomplete) Type of tape: Mono or stereo: Speed: Noise reduction: Original or copy: ____________________________________________________________________ Additional material: ____________________________________________________________________ Copyright/Clearance: © British Library ____________________________________________________________________ Interviewer’s comments: Re Tapes 17-20 (F12013-F12016). I had an arrangement to go for two hours and in fact recorded for four hours. I ran out of tape at the end while he was telling me a particularly interesting story about Lord Lucan. The only thing I could do was carry on and use the tiny bits at the ends of Side B of Tapes 17 and 18 (F12013 and F12014); i.e. to knot the account together, the listener would have to hear the end of Tape 20 side B (F10016B), followed by the end of Tape 17 side B (F12013B) and the end of Tape 18 side B (F12014B). It was too good to miss. (Both sections marked by an asterisk) ________________________________________________________________ Sir Roger Gibbs Page 1 C409/086 Tape 1 Side A (part 1) Tape 1 [F3119] Side A (part 1) Interview with Roger Gibbs at his home on January the 21st 1992. .....office at the Wellcome Trust? [break in recording] .....begin at the beginning. Could you tell me where and when you were born? I was born on the 13th of October 1934, in Hertfordshire. And were you the eldest child? No, I was number four, the fourth son, which was a slight disappointment to the parents, and the fourth of six. And the other two were also boys? They were twins, and the youngest was a daughter luckily. Right. So was she the golden child? I would think so probably; she is certainly now my parents have died, she is certainly the focal point of the family. Oh really. But that always happens. Simply because she’s the girl? That's right. And when you say it was a disappointment to your parents that you were a boy, I mean were you very conscious of that, and are you saying that rather seriously? Sir Roger Gibbs Page 2 C409/086 Tape 1 Side A (part 1) No no no, I'm saying it rather frivolously. And, I wondered if we could look a bit at your family history. I seem to remember that your great-grandfather was fairly prominent in the City. Yes, he was, like the chairmen of quite a number of merchant banks, he was Governor of the Bank of England for two years, I think from 1878 to 1880, but it went on a sort of rota basis in those days. And do you know anything about his time as Governor? I really don't know anything about his time as Governor, but it was extremely uneventful compared to the days of Lord Richardson and Mr Leigh-Pemberton. Very quiet. And he had a family bank or what was it? A family bank that was founded in 1808, Anthony Gibbs & Sons which, they were really more merchant adventurers as opposed to bankers, and they had some very good times and some very bad times. I mean people like Barings have done the same, but Barings flourishes in the 1990s and Anthony Gibbs in actual fact was taken over by the Hong Kong Bank in 1979. Oh so it kept going as late as that. And did you have any involvement with it? No, they never offered me a job. That was probably one of their better decisions! And did any of your brothers work for them? Yes, two of my brothers. My eldest brother David, and my third brother Julian, they were both in Anthony Gibbs. But also there were first cousins, and there were quite a few of the family in it, so there really wasn't room for many more when my turn came. And were you conscious of the bank as a child, was it part of your childhood? Sir Roger Gibbs Page 3 C409/086 Tape 1 Side A (part 1) Oh very much. My father was, he was eventually Chairman of Anthony Gibbs but he was also Chairman of the Australia & New Zealand Bank from, I think 1951 to 1967, that sort of time. So he was a distinguished banker. And as a child were you taken to the bank? Oh certainly, yes, we were either taken to the bank in the City, not very often but occasionally, I think when my father was feeling brave enough, or to Girl Guide headquarters, because my mother was, she ran the overseas side of the Girl Guides. So it was either Buckingham Palace Road or Bishopsgate. And what are your memories of Bishopsgate as a child? Extremely gloomy, dingy, everyone very much on their best behaviour; everyone very friendly but pretty uninspiring. So it didn't make you think, I must join this. It didn’t, no. It never entered my head that I ever would. And were you shown things like gold in the vaults and things like that? Nothing very exciting happened at Anthony Gibbs, nothing like that at all, no. And did you have an impression of the City at that time? I think my impression of the City was, probably if I thought about it at all, I was a bit bewildered by it all, it all seemed very big, very complicated, and something to be avoided. And were any family stories passed down about your great-grandfather? Well there were rhymes written about the Gibbs family and their trading, and one of them is quite unrepeatable, but... Sir Roger Gibbs Page 4 C409/086 Tape 1 Side A (part 1) Is it really unrepeatable? Yes. I can’t actually remember the detail of it, but...I would have to get hold of the book about Anthony Gibbs which was published I think in the 1970s, which has it in full, and various other anecdotes. But they were an extraordinarily respectable set-up, always considered to be straight as a die, but I think pretty effective but not particularly imaginative. Although, I mean things like the finance for the Great Western Railway, that was produced by Anthony Gibbs, and I think it was my great-grandfather who was a particular friend of Brunel, and there were those sort of connections. So as a boy did you grow up knowing about Brunel as well as banking? Not a lot. I think my much more intelligent elder brothers probably did, but I concentrated more on sport. And, what about your father’s father, was he any part of your life? Well again he was chairman of the family bank, and he died when I was two or three so I really didn’t know him. And did you pick up any stories about the sort of character he was? Oh I think he was a thoroughly steadfast, marvellous, affable character. Very much like my father and his younger brother actually, my father’s younger brother, Humphrey Gibbs, who was Governor of Rhodesia. Governor...? Of Rhodesia. Oh right. Gosh, at what point? He disagreed with Mr Ian Smith on most things, it was at that point. Sir Roger Gibbs Page 5 C409/086 Tape 1 Side A (part 1) And so was that part of your family discussions round the table? Was that very much a part of...? Oh very much so, because not only our great interest, and my Uncle Humphrey and Aunt Molly and their family in Southern Rhodesia, but my mother was particularly interested in Africa, and oh, it was a burning topic, in fact probably the most, I would think it was the most frequent topic in family conversation. And to somebody young that can often be a great turn-off, that the last thing you ever want to hear about is Rhodesia, or did you get very drawn in? Well, I think we met so many interesting people from Africa, and...no, it wasn’t a turn-off, but we thought it went on a bit much at times. And were the family views, would they all tend to agree or were there varying viewpoints coming out from the different members of the family? I think of the six of us, and my parents, we didn’t always agree; in fact we very often disagreed, possibly not on major principles and things like that, but we always aired our views and were encouraged to air our views on any subject as forcibly within reason as we liked.