the world of private banking

BANKING AND FAmILy ARcHIVES 103
whereabouts of the original is now unknown. A note about these extracts states
that most of the letters were to bill brokers, but none of these was considered
sufficiently interesting to summarize. All that survives are some interesting
anecdotes, such as the conditions of employment of a nineteenth-century clerk. 11
Indeed tracing and contacting descendants of banking families may lead to
the discovery of additional records. Writing of Samuel Jones Loyd, later Lord
Overstone, and formerly a partner in Jones Loyd and Co., T.E. Gregory lamented:
‘There are no “Overstone papers” to throw light upon an enigmatic character’. 12
D.P. O’Brien, however, located a large collection of Overstone’s correspondence
in 1964. The papers were found in the attic of a house of a descendant. 13
New discoveries are still being made. Recently, a postal historian approached
NatWest Group Archives with information that he had acquired two small
eighteenth-century volumes recording details of bills of exchange, along with
correspondence addressed to both the law firm of Brocklehurst Bagshaw and
Brocklehurst the bankers.
The Brocklehursts were lawyers who later turned to banking, and these
records appear to have been retained by the law firm Brocklehurst Bagshaw.
The volumes containing details of bills of exchange from 1799 are significant
because, if they prove to be the records of the Brocklehurst family, they provide
evidence for the Brocklehursts’ discounting bills well before they were known to
be involved in banking.
Business and Private Papers
The distinction between banking and other business interests is least apparent in
the records of early bankers. Indeed many of the first country bankers commenced
banking as an adjunct to their main business activity. Thomas Smith, founder of
the Smiths banking partnerships, was a mercer and the Stuckeys of Langport were
general merchants as well as bankers. Surviving account books and letter books
often cover all aspects of their business interests. They provide a particularly
fruitful source of information about early banking activities.
The Crompton family from Derby were originally wool merchants and
commenced their banking activities around the early eighteenth century. An
account book belonging to Samuel Crompton (d.1759) contains details of both
businesses. From 1707 to 1709 the book was used as a wool merchant’s delivery
book. A typical entry is: ‘Nov the 28 [1707] sent Mr Daws a packe of Good Jarsy
[jersey] woole at 6.10.0 at Derby’. 14 These entries cease in 1709 and the book was
only used again in 1725 – this time as a cash book. The ensuing entries contain
11
NatWest Group Archives, ref. 3158.
12
Gregory, Westminster Bank, vol. 2, pp. 158–9.
13
O’Brien, Correspondence, vol. 1, p. 3.
14
NatWest Group Archives ref. 10565.