It is a curious point that the Charter of the Bank never did restrict joint-stock banking in its present accepted form, but only the issue of notes by joint-stock bankers or banks having more than six partners. Up to this time the issue of notes by a bank had been thought to be its main business; so much so, that it was believed to be useless to attempt to conduct a bank without power of issue, and consequently no joint-stock bank had been founded. But about this time the need of such institutions began to be felt, and the presumed monopoly of the Bank of England was called in question—largely by Mr. Gilbart, the founder of the London and Westminster Bank. The Bank tried to assert their monopoly, but without success, and in order to settle the matter effectually, the following clause was inserted in the Act passed in 1833 dealing with the Bank Charter:—
“Be it therefore declared and enacted, that any body politic or corporate, or society, or company, or partnership, although consisting of more than six persons, may carry on the trade or business of banking in London, or within sixty-five miles thereof, provided that such body politic or corporate, or society, or company, or partnership, do not borrow, owe, or take up in England, any sum or sums of money on their bills or notes payable on demand, or at any less time than six months from the borrowing thereof, during the continuance of the privileges granted by this Act to the said Governor and Company of the Bank of England.”
It may be noted that this Act of 1833 constituted Bank of England notes a legal tender, except by the Bank itself or its branches.
When the Bank of England first commenced business in 1694, it was located in the Hall of the Grocers’ Company, in which building it continued to conduct its operations until the year 1732. A slight dispute then arising with the Grocers’ Company as to a renewal of the lease of their hall, it was decided by the authorities of the Bank to acquire a building of their own. Accordingly premises were obtained in Threadneedle Street upon a portion of the present site, and Lawson in his History of the Bank of England gives the following details as to the same:—
“The original extent of the Bank comprehends the site of the house and garden belonging to Sir J. Houblon, one of the first directors. It was a comparatively small building, invisible from the street, and surrounded by other buildings, one being the church of St. Christopher le Stocks, and the others consisting of five inns and twenty private houses. As the business and importance of the Bank grew, the surrounding premises were acquired from time to time and demolished, and the present building was gradually erected. Although the church of St. Christopher shared a similar fate with the surrounding buildings, the churchyard was preserved, and now forms what is known as the ‘Garden’ of the Bank.”
Lawson states that one of the clerks of the Bank, of the name of Jenkins, was buried in this consecrated ground. The cause of this interment in such a place arose out of a fear, as expressed by his relatives, that in consequence of his singular height (he was about seven feet tall), his body would be exhumed by body-snatchers if buried elsewhere. The sequel to this episode is within the writer’s personal knowledge. Having to pay a visit to a dentist some few years ago, he was shown, as a curiosity, an enormous human lower jaw-bone with a full set of perfect teeth. Judging from its size, the dentist said that it had evidently belonged to a giant, and he added that it had been given to him by a friend who was a builder and contractor, and that the jaw-bone had been found by one of this friend’s workmen while carrying out some alterations and excavations at the Bank of England!
Alas, poor Jenkins! to be buried in the “Garden” of the Bank of England as a sure place of refuge against body-snatchers, and in the end to have his jaw-bone exhibited as a curio in a dentist’s surgery.
Having shortly sketched the history of the Bank of England from its inception to the time when it was to be opposed by strong competitive establishments, we now will briefly examine the development of private banking up to this period.