the world of private banking

LONDON’S FIRSt ‘BIG BANG’? 77
Figure 4.7 Numbers of English and Welsh banks, by type, 1855–83
IV
With respect to domestic commercial banking, there was less scope for the
postulated ‘Big Bang’ of the mid-1860s to have a dramatic impact comparable to
the very significant institutional changes that it wrought within the London money
market. On the one hand, legislation had allowed banks to be established as jointstock
concerns since 1826 (albeit without limited liability for their shareholders),
while, on the other, country private banking had been declining since 1815. In
this respect figure 4.7 traces the continuation over the mid-century of established
trends in patterns of organizational development. 28 Nevertheless, the piecemeal
repeal of Peel’s 1844 regulatory code between 1857 and 1862 brought about an
28
Data drawn from Nishimura, Decline of Inland Bills, Table 1, pp. 80–81.