Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men

by Eliezer Edwards

Some time before the transfer took place, a member of one of the most respected and influential mercantile families in the neighbourhood suspended payment, owing a large sum to the Bank of Birmingham, upon which he paid a composition. He afterwards prospered, and some twenty-five years afterwards, all those shareholders in the defunct bank who still held, in the Birmingham Banking Company, the shares they had been allotted in exchange at the time of the transfer, received cheques for the deficiency, with interest thereon for the whole period it had been unpaid. A relative of my own received, in this way, several hundred pounds. I am not aware that this circumstance has ever been made public, but it is due to the memory of the late Mr. Robert Lucas Chance that so praise-worthy an act should be on record.

Mr. Pearson, after the closing of the bank, commenced business as a sharebroker, which he continued until his death. He was one of the last to retain, in all its rigour, the peculiar dress of the Society of Friends. His stout, broad-set figure, with the wide-brimmed hat, collarless coat, drab "thoses" and gaiters, will be remembered by many readers.

The Commercial Bank had offices at the corner of Ann Street and Bennetts Hill. Mr. John Stubbs was an active promoter of this bank, and Mr. James Graham was manager. It had a short life. Mr. Graham went to America, and died somewhere on the banks of the Mississippi.

The Tamworth Banking Company opened a branch in High Street, opposite the bottom of Bull Street. It was open as late as 1838, but was eventually given up, and the premises were occupied by Mrs. Syson as a hosier's shop, until pulled down for the Great Western Railway tunnel.

The Borough Bank was promoted by Mr. Goode, of the defunct firm of Gibbins, Smith, and Goode. It was connected with the Northern and Central Bank of England. The office was in Bull Street, in the premises now held by Messrs. J. and B. Smith, Carpet Factors. This bank was unsuccessful, and when it closed, Mr. Goode opened a discounting office in the Upper Priory, which proved to be successful. After a few years, Mr. Goode took as partner his son-in-law, Mr. Marr, a Scotchman, who had been engaged in an Indian bank for many years. The firm then became Goode, Marr, and Co., under which designation it is still carried on. The present proprietor is the son of the Mr. Marr just named, and is the gentleman upon whom a violent murderous attack was made in his office a few years ago. Mr. Goode, the courteous manager of the Birmingham and Midland Bank, is the son of the founder of this firm.

It will be remembered that in 1825 the firm of Gibbins, Smith, and Co. collapsed. As soon as their affairs were arranged, Mr. Gibbins and a nephew of his, named Lovell, opened a bank in New Street, on the spot where Mr. Whitehead now has his shop, at the corner of Bennetts Hill. Here for some two or three years they appear to have done very well; in fact the business became too large for their capabilities. Some of the leading men of the town, with the return of prosperity, began to see that there was ample room for greater banking facilities than the then existing private banks could provide. Negotiations were accordingly entered into for the purchase of this business, and for its conversion into a joint stock bank. Terms were very soon provisionally settled, and the prospectus of the Birmingham Banking Company was issued. The capital was fixed at £500,000, in 10,000 shares of £50 each, of which £5 per share was to be immediately called up. The list of directors contained, among others, the names of Charles Shaw, William Chance, Frederic Ledsam, Joseph Gibbins, and John Mabson. The shares were readily taken by the public, and on September 1st, 1829, the company commenced operations on the premises of Gibbins and Lovell. It was decided, however, to build a suitable banking house, and in a very short time the building standing at the corner of Waterloo Street was erected. Before removing to the new bank, the directors made overtures to Mr. Paul Moon James, of the firm of Galton and Co., which resulted in that bank being closed, and Mr. James becoming manager of the Banking Company. With such directors, and with so able and so popular a man for the manager, the progress of the bank was very rapid, and it soon had the largest banking business in the town. In a few years the reputation which Mr. James had obtained as a successful banker induced the directors of a new bank at Manchester to make him a very lucrative offer. Much to the regret of his Birmingham directors, and indeed to the whole public of the town, he accepted the offer, and shortly afterwards removed to Manchester. He retained the position of manager there until his death. Mr. James was something more than a mere man of business. He had a cultured mind, and took a very active part in educational questions. This very day, on looking over an old book, I found his name as the Birmingham representative of a leading literary association of my younger days, the "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge"—a society which, with Lord Brougham for chairman and Charles Knight for its most active member, did much to create good, wholesome, cheap literature, and published, among many other works, the "Penny Magazine" and the "Penny Cyclopædia."

After Mr. James left Birmingham, the directors of the Banking Company appointed Mr. William Beaumont to be his successor. A Yorkshireman by birth, he had resided for some time in Wolverhampton, filling a responsible position in one of the banks there. Mr. Beaumont remained manager of the Birmingham Banking Company until his death in 1863, having filled the office for more than a quarter of a century. During his life the bank had a very high reputation, and paid excellent dividends. It had squally weather occasionally, of coarse, but it weathered all storms. It was in great jeopardy in the great panic of 1837. It held at that time, drawn by one of its customers upon a Liverpool house, four bills for £20,000 each, and one for £10,000. It held besides heavy draughts upon the same firm by other houses, and the acceptors—failing remittances from America—were in great straits. Mr. Charles Shaw, the chairman of this bank, saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England, and averted the impending calamity. But for timely aid, the Liverpool firm must have stopped, to the ruin of half the country. The bank had another sharp turn of it from 1842 to 1844, when bar iron fell from £12 per ton to £6; but it overcame all its difficulties until the retirement of Mr. Shaw and the death of Mr. Beaumont.

From this time forward there seems to have been great want of a strong head and a steady eye amongst the directors. The plausibilities of Mr. W.H. Beaumont—who had succeeded his father as manager—seem to have put them off their guard, and they followed where he led until it ended in ruin. It is useless now to say all one knows, or a quarter of what has been said; but it has always been my opinion, and always will be, that if Charles Shaw, or a man with half his courage and ability, had been at the helm, the Bank would not have closed its doors. Had they only sought counsel of their larger shareholders, there was amongst them one man, still living, who not only could, but would, have saved the bank from shipwreck.

Few men in Birmingham are likely to forget "Black Saturday," the 14th of July, 1866. Had a French army suddenly opened a bombardment of the town from Highgate, it would possibly not have caused greater astonishment and dismay. That very week shares had been sold on the Stock Exchange at a high premium; and now, by the culpable weakness of a few unquestionably honest and well-intentioned gentlemen, the hard-earned life's savings of aged and infirm men, the sole dependence of scores of widows and hundreds of orphans, was utterly gone. No wonder that pious, God-fearing men ground their teeth and muttered curses, or that women, pale and trembling, tore their hair in wild terror, while some poor sorrowing creatures sought refuge in suicide. No wonder that even now, more than eleven years after, the memory of that day still rises, like a hideous dream, in the minds of thousands.

I have been shown a copy of a lithographed daily newspaper, printed on board the "Great Eastern" steamship, then engaged in laying the first successful Atlantic cable. In the number for July 14th, is an account of the stoppage of this bank, which had been telegraphed to the ship in mid-ocean by means of the cable then being submerged.