Till Time's Last Sand

by David Kynaston

  27 Economist, 11 May 1844; Churchill, vol 22; Lytton Strachey and Roger Fulford (eds), The Greville Memoirs, 1814–60 (1938), vol V, p 173; Times, 8 May 1844, 14 May 1844; Economist, 18 May 1844.

  28 Charles Stuart Parker (ed), Sir Robert Peel from his Private Papers (1899), vol II, p 570; Circular to Bankers, 14 June 1844; M5/206 (item 65); Circular to Bankers, 14 June 1844; Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, vol LXXV (1844), 13 June 1844, cols 804, 809–11, 851, 869; Overstone, vol 1, p 359; Jenkins, p 308; Clapham, vol 2, p 270; Overstone, vol 1, p 363; Darwin’s, pp xlvii–xlviii.

  CHAPTER 6: THE EFFECTS OF TIGHT LACING

  1 M5/206, item 79; Acres, vol 2, p 501; Richard Roberts, ‘The Bank of England and the City’, in Roberts and Kynaston, pp 156–7; W. M. Scammell, The London Discount Market (1968), p 147.

  2 Bankers’ Magazine, April 1845, p 53; King, p 134; H. M. Boot, ‘The Commercial Crisis of 1847’ (University of Hull PhD, 1979), p 369; Clapham, vol 2, pp 199, 213.

  3 Rudiger Dornbusch and Jacob A. Frenkel, ‘The Gold Standard and the Bank of England in the Crisis of 1847’, in Michael D. Bordo and Anna J. Schwartz (eds), A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard, 1821–1931 (Chicago, 1984), pp 245–6; Gareth Campbell, ‘Government Policy during the British Railway Mania and the 1847 Commercial Crisis’, in Nicholas Dimsdale and Anthony Hotson (eds), British Financial Crises since 1825 (Oxford, 2014), p 71; D. P. O’Brien and John Creedy, Darwin’s Clever Neighbour (Cheltenham, 2010), pp 417–18; Feavearyear, p 282; Kynaston, vol 1, p 154; Dornbusch and Frenkel, pp 249–50; Anthony Howe, Free Trade and Liberal England, 1846–1946 (Oxford, 1997), pp 55–6; D. P. O’Brien (ed), The Correspondence of Lord Overstone (Cambridge, 1971), vol 1, p 383.

  4 Feavearyear, p 283; Royal Bank of Scotland Archives PRE/1/2 Partners’ meetings minute book of Prescott, Grote, Ames, Cave & Grote, 19 August 1847; Jardine Matheson & Co records (Cambridge University Library), II.A.1.10, reel 300, no 3, 128; Overstone, vol 1, p 391; Anthony Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption” to “New Probity”’, Financial History Review, April 1994, p 32; Clapham, vol 2, pp 198–204; King, p 142; Jardine Matheson, II.O.5, private letters from London, 1812–82, reel 463, no P.115; OL, Dec 1929, pp 236–7 (Acres).

  5 Jardine Matheson, II.A.1.10, reel 300, no 3, 141; Boot, ‘Commercial Crisis’, p 262; RBS Archives PRE/1/2 Partners’ meetings minute book of Prescott, Grote, Ames, Cave & Grote, 21 October 1847; Feavearyear, p 284; Economist, 23 Oct 1847; Clapham, vol 2, pp 207–8; Feavearyear, p 284; King, p 146.

  6 M5/208, 23 Oct 1847; Clapham, vol 2, pp 208–9; M5/527; Dornbusch and Frenkel, p 252; Feavearyear, p 285; Overstone, vol 1, p 397.

  7 Boot, ‘Commercial Crisis’, p 280; Robert Blake, Disraeli (1966), p 263; Economist, 30 Oct 1847; Feavearyear, p 286; Catherine Molyneux, ‘Reform and Process’, in Michael J. Turner (ed), Reform and Reformers in Nineteenth Century Britain (Sunderland, 2004), p 73; Frank Whitson Fetter, Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy, 1797–1875 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1965), pp 260–1; Feavearyear, pp 286–7.

  8 Howe, Free Trade, p 56; Overstone, vol 1, p 391; Times, 14 Sept 1847, 17 Sept 1847; Overstone, vol 1, p 395.

  9 G4/70, 20 Jan 1848, 3 Feb 1848, 10 Feb 1848; Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption”’, pp 23–41; J. C. Levenson et al (eds), The Letters of Henry Adams, Volume 1 (1982), p 465.

  10 Giuseppi, p 110; Morning Chronicle, 11 April 1848; Records of the London Stock Exchange (Guildhall Library), Ms 14,600, vol 20, 10 April 1848; Morning Chronicle, 11–12 April 1848.

  11 The Baring Archive, DEP 74 vol 4, Diaries of Joshua Bates, 10 October 1852; Feavearyear, p 288; E. J. Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire (1969 Pelican edn), pp 139–40.

  12 Acres, vol 2, pp 512–14; Dieter Ziegler, ‘Central Banking in the English Provinces in the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century’, Business History, Oct 1989, p 44; Feavearyear, p 287; King, pp 161–9.

  13 John Brooke and Mary Sorensen (eds), The Prime Minister’s Papers: W. E. Gladstone, Volume II, Autobiographica (1971), pp 128–9; Richard Shannon, Gladstone, Volume 1, 1809–1865 (1982), p 289; John Morley, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone (1905 two-vol edn), vol 1, p 518; Clapham, vol 2, p 253; Marc Flandreau, ‘Central bank cooperation’, Economic History Review, Nov 1997, pp 747–8.

  14 M5/209; Feavearyear, p 290; Report from the Select Committee on the Bank Acts (July 1857), qq 328–32; Feavearyear, pp 290–1; Norman St John Stevas (ed), The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, Volume Nine (1978), p 360.

  15 14A185/8, item 71; Clapham, vol 2, p 227; 14A185/8, item 95; Nicholas Dimsdale and Anthony Hotson, ‘Financial Crises and Economic Activity in the UK since 1825’, in Dimsdale and Hotson, p 39; M5/454, 29 Oct 1857; Overstone, vol 2, pp 758, 764–5; Clapham, vol 2, p 229; M5/454, 7 Nov 1857.

  16 King, p 198; M5/454, 9–10 Nov 1857; Feavearyear, pp 293–4; 14A185/9, item 140; Overstone, vol 2, p 786; Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street (1873), p 179; M6/65.

  17 Kathleen Burk, Morgan Grenfell, 1838–1988 (Oxford, 1989), pp 21–2; Kynaston, vol 1, p 197; 14A185/9, item 144; Overstone, vol 2, pp 811, 819, 822–3.

  18 M5/455, 1 Jan 1858; George J. Goschen, The Theory of the Foreign Exchanges (1879 edn of the third edn), p xii; M5/455, 8 Jan 1858.

  19 Report from the Select Committee on the Bank Acts (July 1858), qq 86–7, 189–91, 394–5; Elmer Wood, English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819–1858 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1939), p 171; Acres, vol 2, pp 520–1.

  20 M5/455, 11 March 1858; Times, 15 March 1858; Clapham, vol 2, p 240; Report from the Select Committee (1858), q 399; Wood, p 134; Bagehot, Volume 9, p 382.

  21 M5/457, 31 Jan 1860, 12 April 1860, 14 April 1860, 16 April 1860; 14A185/37, item 418; M5/457, 17 April 1860; Clapham, vol 2, p 244; M5/457, 19 April 1860; HSBC Group Archives, UK M 0005, General board minute book.

  22 Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption”’, pp 39–40; Clapham, vol 2, pp 255–6; Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption”’, p 39; M5/202; Daily News, 8 Feb 1861; Giuseppi, p 117; Morley, vol 1, p 686; Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption”’, p 40.

  23 Geoffrey Elliott, The Mystery of Overend and Gurney (2006); John Stephen Flynn, Sir Robert N. Fowler (1893), p 150; Bertram Wodehouse Currie, Recollections, Letters and Journals (Roehampton, 1901), vol 1, p 61.

  24 See generally: Forrest Capie, ‘The emergence of the Bank of England as a mature central bank’, in Donald Winch and Patrick K. O’Brien (eds), The Political Economy of British Historical Experience, 1688–1914 (Oxford, 2002), pp 303–5; Marc Flandreau and Stefano Ugolini, ‘The Crisis of 1866’, in Dimsdale and Hotson, pp 76–93.

  25 Philip Ziegler, The Sixth Great Power (1988), p 182; RBS Archives GM/1118, letter from Bertram Wodehouse Currie to his father Raikes Currie, 11 May 1866; Times, 11 May 1866; RBS Archives PRE/1/6 Partners’ meetings minute book of Prescott, Grote, Cave & Cave, 11 May 1866; Times, 12 May 1866; Bagehot, vol 13 (1986), p 608; Clapham, vol 2, p 264; H. C. G. Mathew (ed), The Gladstone Diaries, Volume VI (Oxford, 1978), p 436; diary of Sir Richard Biddulph Martin (Holland-Martin family archives), 12 May 1866; King, p 242.

  CHAPTER 7: MATTERS OF CONDUCT AND BEHAVIOUR

  1 The Education of Henry Adams (1918 edn), p 73; Abramson, pp 200–1; de Fraine, pp 26–8; M5/592, fo 250; E30/1, fo 29; George Santayana, The Middle Span (1947), p 37.

  2 Clapham, vol 2, p 247; G4/89, 7 Feb 1867; Clapham, vol 2, pp 282–3; M5/489, Hammond Chubb, ‘Report of the Expenses of the Bank from 1853’, p 5; Clapham, vol 2, p 301.

  3 ADM30/17, larger file, immediately after fo 21; M5/489, Chubb, ‘Report’, pp 10, 3, 12–13.

  4 R. S. Sayers, Lloyds Bank in the History of English Banking (1957), p 151; Dieter Ziegler, Central Bank, Peripheral Industry (Leicester, 1990), pp 37–8; Hewitt and Keyworth, pp 111–12; OL, Dec 1995, pp 142–4 (Diana Moore).

  5 This account is based on: Judy Slinn, A History of Freshfields (1984), pp 122–3; David C. Hanrahan, The Great Fraud on the Bank of England (2014); Nicholas Booth, The Thieves of Threadneedle Street (Stroud, 2015).

  6 OL, Dec 19
85, p 181 (Derrick Byatt); Hennessy, pp 47–8; Acres, vol 2, pp 538–40; OL, June 1921, pp 55–6 (A. G. Rowlett), Dec 1985, p 181 (Byatt).

  7 OL, Dec 1927, p 165 (Acres); de Fraine, p 7; Acres, vol 2, p 550; M5/593, fos 6–7; E4/15.

  8 Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson (eds), The Brownings’ Correspondence: Volume 3 (Winfield, Kansas, 1985), pp 307–9; Philip Kelley and Scott Lewis (eds), The Brownings’ Correspondence: Volume 13 (Winfield, Kansas, 1995), p 299; ADM30/20, Browning Family file; ODNB, Rita McWilliams Tullbelg, ‘Marshall, Alfred’; J. M. Keynes, ‘Alfred Marshall, 1842–1924’, in A. C. Pigou (ed), Memorials of Alfred Marshall (1925), pp 1–2.

  9 de Fraine, pp 14–15; Byatt, p 80; OL, March 1967, p 5; Byatt, pp 102–3; ADM30/26, Matthew Marshall file; ADM30/30, Smee Family file; Byatt, p 96; Giuseppi, p 105.

  10 ADM 30/17–18; Giuseppi, p 101; ADM30/17, fo 17; Acres, vol 2, p 557; E30/1, fo 8; ADM30/17, fo 27.

  11 Acres, vol 2, pp 484–6; ADM30/17, fo 58A; Acres, vol 2, p 559; Elizabeth Hennessy, ‘The Governors, Directors and Management of the Bank of England’, in Roberts and Kynaston, p 202; M5/489, Chubb, ‘Report’, pp 12, 3; OL, Dec 1921, pp 150–1 (William Shand).

  12 G4/89, 7 Feb 1867; E4/15; OL, Sept 1969, p 152, March 1965, p 28 (Wilbur C. Fish); de Fraine, pp 4–5.

  13 Acres, vol 2, pp 486–7; OL, Sept 1922, p 255 (W. Courthope Forman), Dec 1935, p 263 (C. H. Goodman), March 1930, pp 9–10 (Allan Fea); Allan Fea, Recollections of Sixty Years (1927), p 149.

  14 Acres, vol 2, pp 551–2; M5/654; E30/1, fo 37.

  15 M5/235, 15 Feb 1858, 23 May 1859; M5/289, 5 July 1861.

  16 OL, Sept 1922, pp 256–7 (W. Courthope Forman); M5/604, fos 107–11.

  17 OL, March 1950, opp p 313; Giuseppi, p 104; ADM30/17, fo 31; OL, June 1950, p 407 (Giuseppi).

  18 E30/1, fo 16; de Fraine, p 79; C82/6, fo 103.

  CHAPTER 8: MONEY WILL NOT MANAGE ITSELF

  1 Economist, 22 Sept 1866; Thomson Hankey, The Principles of Banking (1867), pp 25–6; Economist, 8 Dec 1866, 22 Dec 1866.

  2 Times, 28 May 1869.

  3 Times, 12 Nov 1872; Economist, 16 Nov 1872; Hankey, Principles (1873 edn), pp iii–ix; Walter Bagehot, Lombard Street (9th edn, 1888), pp 322, 326–8, 196–9.

  4 R. S. Sayers, Central Banking after Bagehot (1957), p 9; Morgan, p 181; Hugh Rockoff, ‘Walter Bagehot and the Theory of Central Banking’, in Forrest Capie and Geoffrey E. Wood (eds), Financial Crises and the World Banking System (Basingstoke, 1986), pp 164, 172–3; John D. Turner, Banking in Crisis (Cambridge, 2014), p 143; records of Rathbone Bros & Co (Liverpool University Library), files of general correspondence, 1851–73, XXIV.1.24 (51–113), 17 Oct 1873; Bagehot, Lombard Street, pp 19–20. See also: John H. Wood, ‘Bagehot’s Lender of Last Resort’, Independent Review, Winter 2003, pp 343–51; Vincent Bignon et al, ‘Bagehot for beginners’, Economic History Review, May 2012, pp 580–608.

  5 Bagehot, Lombard Street, pp 41–2, 73, 230–40; Rathbone, files, 21 Oct 1873.

  6 The Rothschild Archive (London), 000/84, 17 Sept 1869; Augustus Muir, Blyth, Greene, Jourdain & Company Limited, 1810–1960 (1961), pp 20, 24; ADM30/6; Bankers’ Magazine, Feb 1888, pp 147–50; Boyle, pp 10–18; Anon (Wilfred Maude), Antony Gibbs and Sons Limited: Merchants and Bankers, 1808–1958 (1958), p 27; Rachel Gibbs, Pedigree of the Family of Gibbs (1981 edn), p xix; DBB, William M. Mathew, ‘Henry Hucks Gibbs, 1st Lord Aldenham’; M6/28, pp 18, 23, 26, 33.

  7 D. P. O’Brien (ed), The Correspondence of Lord Overstone (Cambridge, 1971), vol 3, p 1315; Clapham, vol 2, p 309; Turner, p 85; L. S. Pressnell, ‘Gold Reserves, Banking Reserves, and the Baring Crisis of 1890’, in C. R. Whittlesey and J. S. G. Wilson (eds), Essays in Money and Banking in Honour of R. S. Sayers (1968), p 189; Michael Collins, ‘The Bank of England as lender of last resort, 1857–1878’, Economic History Review, Feb 1992, p 147; Dieter Ziegler, ‘The Banking Crisis of 1878’, Economic History Review, Feb 1992, p 138.

  8 Michael Collins, ‘The Banking Crisis of 1878’, Economic History Review, Nov 1989, p 526; William P. Kennedy, Industrial Structure, Capital Markets and the Origins of British Economic Decline (Cambridge, 1987), pp 120–34.

  9 Observer, 9 Oct 2011; Anthony Howe, ‘From “Old Corruption” to “New Probity”’, Financial History Review, April 1994, p 27.

  10 Kynaston, vol 1, pp 259–60; R. C. Michie, The London and New York Stock Exchanges, 1850–1914 (1987), pp 145–7; T. H. S. Escott, England (1879), vol 1, pp 190, 192–4; Jacob Viner, ‘Clapham on the Bank of England’, Economica, May 1945, pp 63–4; Journal of the Institute of Bankers, 1887, pp 509–10.

  11 G15/145; Royal Commission appointed to Inquire into the recent Changes in the relative Values of the Precious Metals (First Report, P.P. 1887, XXII), q 5880; Bimetallic League, The Proceedings of the Bimetallic Conference held at Manchester, 4th and 5th April, 1888 (Manchester, 1888), p 22.

  12 This paragraph is based on two papers by Bernard Attard: ‘Marketing colonial debt in London’ (unpublished); ‘Imperial central banks?’, in Olivier Feiertag and Michel Margairaz (eds), Les banques centrales et l’Etat-nation (Paris, 2016).

  13 R. F. Foster, Lord Randolph Churchill (1981), p 194; diaries of Sir Edward Hamilton (British Library), Add Ms, 48,644, 3 Sept 1886; David Kynaston, The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lavenham, 1980), p 124; Hamilton, 3 Sept 1886, 3 Sept 1885, Add Ms, 48,647, 31 Jan 1888.

  14 Hamilton, Add Ms, 48,648, 4 March 1888; Clapham, vol 2, p 320; Boyle, p 27; Clapham, vol 2, p 318; OL, Dec 1932, p 238 (Allan Fea), June 1921, p 56 (A. G. Rowlett).

  15 G. A. Fletcher, The Discount Houses in London (1976), p 30; Economist, 5 Dec 1874; Pressnell, pp 186–9; M6/28, pp 5, 7–8; Forrest Capie et al, ‘The development of central banking’, in Forrest Capie et al, The Future of Central Banking (Cambridge, 1994), pp 13, 114–15.

  16 Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker (1998), p 821; Richard Aldous, The Lion and the Unicorn (2006), pp 262–3.

  17 Clapham, vol 2, p 316; G23/67, fos 135–6, 141–4; Clapham, vol 2, pp 317–18.

  18 Bullionist, 1 Feb 1890.

  19 DBB, Sheila Marriner, ‘William Lidderdale’; Sayers, vol 1, pp 50–1; Pressnell, pp 191–2; Hamilton, Add Ms, 48,653, 9 Aug 1890; Pressnell, p 191.

  20 Arthur D. Elliot, The Life of George Joachim Goschen, First Viscount Goschen (1911), vol II, p 169; The Baring Archive, HC3.52.8, Currie to Revelstoke, 23 Feb 1887.

  21 Instructive accounts of the crisis include: Clapham, vol 2, pp 326–39; Pressnell, pp 192–207; Philip Ziegler, The Sixth Great Power (1988), pp 235–66; Ferguson, pp 864–9; Turner, pp 154–7; Marcello de Cecco, Money and Empire (Oxford, 1974), pp 88–98; P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion 1688–1914 (1993), pp 153–8, 293–4.

  22 G15/192, fo 176; G15/189, fo 15A; Elliot, pp 170–2.

  23 Ziegler, Sixth, pp 247–8; G15/192, fo 183.

  24 G15/189, fo 3; G15/192, fo 177; Clapham, vol 2, pp 330–1; G15/192, fo 179; G15/189, fo 15A; Bertram Wodehouse Currie, Recollections, Letters and Journals (Roehampton, 1901), vol 1, pp 92–3; Hamilton, Add Ms, 48,654, 15 Nov 1890; G15/189, fo 15A.

  25 Times, 15 Nov 1890; G23/85, fo 157; George Chandler, Four Centuries of Banking, Volume 1 (1964), pp 333–4; G15/189, fo 29A; Clapham, vol 2, pp 336–7.

  CHAPTER 9: WONDERFULLY YOUTHFUL IN SPIRIT – CONSIDERING

  1 The best treatment remains L. S. Pressnell, ‘Gold Reserves, Banking Reserves, and the Baring Crisis of 1890’, in C. R. Whittlesey and J. S. G. Wilson (eds), Essays in Money and Banking in Honour of R. S. Sayers (1968).

  2 Diaries of Sir Edward Hamilton (British Library), Add Ms, 48,654, 8 Jan 1891; G23/85, 22 Jan 1891; Times, 29 Jan 1891; Roger Fulford, Glyn’s, 1753–1953 (1953), pp 216–17; Hamilton, Add Mss, 48,655, 24 May 1891, 48,656, 19 Nov 1891; Welby Collection on Banking and Currency (LSE), vol VII, fos 374–97; Pressnell, p 213; Hamilton, Add Ms, 48, 615A, 21 Dec 1891; Bankers’ Magazine, March 1892, p 378; RBS Archives GM/7, private letterbook containing copies of Bertram Wodehouse Currie's out-let
ters from Glyn, Mills, Currie & Co, January 1893; Marcello de Cecco, Money and Empire (Oxford, 1974), p 95.

  3 Sayers, vol 1, p 17; Hamilton, Add Mss, 48,661, 11 Aug 1893, 48,615B, 19 Sept 1893, 23 Sept 1893.

  4 For a reasonably full account, see OL, Summer/Autumn 1994, pp 58–9 (Alison Cook).

  5 Bankers’ Magazine, Dec 1889, pp 1490–1; G4/116; G8/47, 8 Nov 1893; Harcourt Papers (Bodleian), Dep 170, fo 55; FT, 10 Nov 1893; Hamilton, Add Ms, 58,661, 12 Nov 1893; Harcourt, Dep 396, fos 76–8.

  6 Investors’ Review, Jan 1894, pp 1–17; Daily Chronicle, 3 Jan 1894; Punch, 8 Jan 1894; Times, 8 Jan 1894; Harcourt, Dep 170, fo 78; Hamilton, Add Ms, 48,662, 25 Jan 1894; G15/139; Bo Bramsen and Kathleen Wain, The Hambros (1979), pp 334–5; OL, Summer/Autumn 1994, p 59 (Alison Cook); Times, 16 March 1894.

  7 de Fraine, pp 81–3; Harcourt, Dep 416, fos 85–6.

  8 Acres, vol 2, pp 560–1; E30/1, fo 45; OL, Dec 1936, pp 306–8 (Mrs W. L. Courtney); de Fraine, pp 121–2. See also: OL, March 2007, p 11 (Hayley Whiting).

  9 Oscar Wilde’s Plays, Prose Writings, and Poems (1930 Everyman edn), p 369; Bertram Wodehouse Currie, Recollections, Letters and Journals (Roehampton, 1901), pp 104–8; Feavearyear, p 331; C. A. E. Goodhart, The Business of Banking, 1891–1914 (Aldershot, 1986 edn), p 106; Jehanne Wake, Kleinwort Benson (Oxford, 1997), pp 201–2; Hamilton, Add Ms, 48,672, 16 Sept 1897; FT, 20 Sept 1897; RBS Archives PAB/1/3, Directors’ meetings minute book of Parr’s Banking Co & Alliance Bank Ltd, 23 September 1897; RBS Archives GM/180/22 File of correspondence from members of the Committee of the Gold Standard Defence Association, Sept 1897.

  10 OL, March 1965, p 25 (R. C. Balfour); Esther Madeleine Ogden, ‘The Development of the Role of the Bank of England as a Lender of Last Resort, 1870–1914’ (University of London PhD, 1988), pp 376, 380–1; G15/39; HSBC Group Archives, UK M 0153-0062, Rowland Hughes’ notes on National Provincial Bank: commission; Goodhart, p 102; Bankers’ Magazine, Aug 1899, pp 148–51.

  11 J. A. Hobson, Imperialism (1902), p 359; Times, 17 Oct 1899; Bankers’ Magazine, Feb 1900, p 313; Journal of the Institute of Bankers, May 1900, pp 258–9.