the world of private banking

LONDON’S FIRSt ‘BIG BANG’? 83
Probably some 13 entirely new private English country banking houses
were also set up between 1857 and 1883 and one thereafter. 47 Nonetheless, their
foundations in no way offset the long-established declining trend in private country
banking. In terms of the total number of banking offices, private country houses
were of some importance during the late 1870s only in the agricultural shires,
where they numbered 159 with, in aggregate, 400 branches. Even so, in this last
retreat, they were in local competition with 43 joint-stock banks which collectively
had 380 branches. 48 Many of the private houses that survived to the mid-century
were located in the Home Counties, where they had a degree of shelter from jointstock
competition given by the Bank of England’s post-1833 corporate monopoly
of note-issuing. This had prevented the establishment of competing joint-stock
note-issuing banks within a 65-mile radius of London, and meant that the south
east, beyond the metropolis’s central urban core, lacked adequate banking
facilities, a condition still remarked upon until the 1890s. However, the semimonopolistic
position of note-issuing private banks in the area around London
was challenged from the mid-1860s by the further expansion of the London &
County’s branch network. Thereafter, from the mid-1870s, the position of these
particular private banks was made more problematic by the decline of cereal prices,
which had damaging effects upon south-eastern arable agriculture, especially in
Cambridgeshire and Essex.
London private banking did not wane to such an extent over the mid-century.
Possibly 17 new houses were established in the metropolis between 1858 and
1883, and a further nine thereafter. 49 They had very divergent natures, including
Cockburn’s Guaranteed Cheque Bank and the banking arm of William Whiteley’s
department store in Queensway. As this suggests, some reflected the new banking
of the mid-Victorian period generated by the demands of the growing middle
classes and, thereby, had little in common with their predecessors in the West
End and the City. Others were very personal creatures, such as Grants (1872–94),
the last business vehicle of Albert Gottheimer/Baron Grant in association with
47
Data drawn from Capie and Webber, Monetary History of the United Kingdom, vol.
I, Appendix II, pp. 539–76. The uncertainty arises from when it is possible to check the
entries in the enumeration of Capie and Webber with other sources. For instance, they appear
to indicate that Hedge Wells & Co. was established in 1858, whereas Sayers shows that
this was a successor house to Wells, Allnatt, Wells & Wells of Wallingford, which opened
in 1797. Similarly, Sayers considers Pomfret [Barra] & Co., 1875, to have developed from
Jemmett, Whitfield & Jemmett of Ashford, Kent (1791). See Sayers, Lloyds, pp. 281, 282.
48
W. Newmarch, ‘The Increase in the Number of Banks and Branches ... 1858–
1878’, Bankers’ Magazine (1879), pp. 849–61.
49
Data drawn from Capie and Webber, Monetary History of the United Kingdom, vol.
I, Appendix II, pp. 539–76. Again, the uncertainty arises from when it is possible to check
the entries in the enumeration of Capie and Webber with other sources. For instance, they
appear to indicate that Brooks & Co. was established in 1864, whereas Sayers shows that
this was a reconstitution of a house established in 1824. See Sayers, Lloyds, p. 281.