The Private Banks
Any differences that exist between the private and joint-stock banks of England lie in their ownership rather than in their functions. Their functions are the same, but the manner in which they carry them out is perhaps influenced to a slight extent by the fact, which really distinguishes them, that the private banks are owned by a few partners who generally conduct the business for themselves or exert more or less influence on it, while the joint-stock banks are managed by salaried directors and officials on behalf of a large body of shareholders formed into a public company, the shares in which can as a rule be bought and sold on the London Stock Exchange.
Since private enterprise naturally precedes joint-stock institutions, it goes without saying that the private banks of England were the pioneers of the banking business. There are still in existence private firms which were founded before the Bank of England. A goldsmith called Child was doing business of a banking character soon after 1660, and Child's Bank still exists. Hoare's Bank was instituted in about 1680, fourteen years before the Bank of England received its charter. Modern developments have almost driven them out of the field, and among the leading banks in the city of London only two are left which can still be called private in the old sense of the word. There are one or two other institutions which are on the borderland: and at the west end of the town several old firms, including Child's and Hoare's, have retained their old constitutions.