Old and New London, Volume I / A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places

by Walter Thornbury

"The court-room of the Bank," says Francis, "is a noble apartment, by Sir Robert Taylor, of the Composite order, about 60 feet long and 31 feet 6 inches wide, with large Venetian windows on the south, overlooking that which was formerly the churchyard of St. Christopher. The north side is remarkable for three exquisite chimney-pieces of statuary marble, the centre being the most magnificent. The east and west are distinguished by columns detached from the walls, supporting beautiful arches, which again support a ceiling rich with ornament. The west leads by folding doors to an elegant octagonal committee-room, with a fine marble chimney-piece. The Governor's room is square, with various paintings, one of which is a portrait of William III. in armour, an intersected ceiling, and semi-circular windows. This chimney-piece is also of statuary marble; and on the wall is a fine painting, by Marlow, of the Bank, Bank Buildings, Cornhill, and Royal Exchange. An ante-room contains portraits of Mr. Abraham Newland and another of the old cashiers, taken as a testimony of the appreciation of the directors. In the waiting-room are two busts, by Nollekens, of Charles James Fox and William Pitt. The original Rotunda, by Sir Robert Taylor, was roofed in with timber; but when a survey was made, in 1794, it was found advisable to take it down; and in the ensuing year the present Rotunda was built, under the superintendence of Sir John Soane. It measures 57 feet in diameter and about the same in height to the lower part of the lantern. It is formed of incombustible materials, as are all the offices erected under the care of Sir John Soane. For many years this place was a scene of constant confusion, caused by the presence of the stockbrokers and jobbers. In 1838 this annoyance was abolished, the occupants were ejected from the Rotunda, and the space employed in cashing the dividend-warrants of the fundholders. The offices appropriated to the management of the various stocks are all close to or branch out from the Rotunda. The dividends are paid in two rooms devoted to that purpose, and the transfers are kept separate. They are arranged in books, under the various letters of the alphabet, containing the names of the proprietors and the particulars of their property. Some of the stock-offices were originally constructed by Sir Robert Taylor, but it has been found necessary to make great alterations, and most of them are designed from some classical model; thus the Three per Cent. Consol office, which, however, was built by Sir John Soane, is taken from the ancient Roman baths, and is 89 feet 9 inches in length and 50 feet in breadth. The chief cashier's office, an elegant and spacious apartment, is built after the style of the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome, and measures 45 feet by 30.

"The fine court which leads into Lothbury presents a magnificent display of Greek and Roman architecture. The buildings on the east and west sides are nearly hidden by open screens of stone, consisting of a lofty entablature, surmounted by vases, and resting on columns of the Corinthian order, the bases of which rest on a double flight of steps. This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, after the model of the triumphal arch of Constantine, at Rome, forms the entrance into the bullion yard."

The old Clearing House of 1821 is thus described:—"In a large room is a table, with as numerous drawers as there are City bankers, with the name of each banker on his drawer, having an aperture to introduce the cheque upon him, whereof he retains the key.

"A clerk going with a charge of £99,000, perhaps, upon all the other bankers, puts the cheques through their respective apertures into their drawers at three o'clock. He returns at four, unlocks his own drawer, and finds the others have collectively put into his drawer drafts upon him to the amount, say, of £100,000; consequently he has £1,000, the difference, to pay. He searches for another, who has a larger balance to receive, and gives him a memorandum for this £1,000; he, for another; so that it settles with two, who frequently, with a very few thousands in bank-notes, settle millions bought and sold daily in London, without the immense repetition of receipts and payments that would otherwise ensue, or the immense increase of circulating medium that would be otherwise necessary."

The illustration on page 475 represents the appearance of the present Clearing House. The business done at this establishment daily is enormous, amounting to something like £150,000,000 each day.

"All the sovereigns," says Mr. Wills, "returned from the banking-houses are consigned to a secluded cellar; and, when you enter it, you will possibly fancy yourself on the premises of a clockmaker who works by steam. Your attention is speedily concentrated on a small brass box, not larger than an eight-day pendule, the works of which are impelled by steam. This is a self-acting weighing machine, which, with unerring precision, tells which sovereigns are of standard weight, and which are light, and of its own accord separates the one from the other. Imagine a long trough or spout—half a tube that has been split into two sections—of such a semi-circumference as holds sovereigns edgeways, and of sufficient length to allow of two hundred of them to rest in that position one against another. The trough thus charged is fixed slopingly upon the machine, over a little table, as big as the plate of an ordinary sovereign-balance. The coin nearest to the Lilliputian platform drops upon it, being pushed forward by the weight of those behind. Its own weight presses the table down; but how far down? Upon that hangs the whole merit and discriminating power of the machine. At the back and on each side of this small table, two little hammers move by steam backwards and forwards at different elevations. If the sovereign be full weight, down sinks the table too low for the higher hammer to hit it, but the lower one strikes the edge, and off the sovereign tumbles into a receiver to the left. The table pops up again, receiving, perhaps, a light sovereign, and the higher hammer, having always first strike, knocks it into a receiver to the right, time enough to escape its colleague, which, when it comes forward, has nothing to hit, and returns, to allow the table to be elevated again. In this way the reputation of thirty-three sovereigns is established or destroyed every minute. The light weights are taken to a clipping machine, slit at the rate of two hundred a minute, weighed in a lump, the balance of deficiency charged to the banker from whom they were received, and sent to the Mint to be re-coined. Those which have passed muster are re-issued to the public. The inventor of this beautiful little detector was Mr. Cotton, a former Governor. The comparatively few sovereigns brought in by the general public are weighed in ordinary scales by the tellers."

The Bank water-mark—or, more properly, the wire-mark—is obtained by twisting wires to the desired form or design, and sticking them on the face of the mould; therefore the design is above the level face of the mould by the thickness of the wires it is composed of. Hence the pulp, in settling down on the mould, must of necessity be thinner on the wire design than on the other parts of the sheet. When the water has run off through the sieve-like face of the mould, the new-born sheet of paper is "couched," the mould gently but firmly pressed upon a blanket, to which the spongy sheet clings. Sizing is a subsequent process, and, when dry, the water-mark is plainly discernible, being, of course, transparent where the substance is thinnest. The paper is then dried, and made up into reams of 500 sheets each, ready for press. The water-mark in the notes of the Bank of England is secured to that establishment by virtue of a special Act of Parliament. It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that imitation of anything whatever connected with a bank-note is an extremely unsafe experiment.

This curious sort of paper is unique. There is nothing like it in the world of sheets. Tested by the touch, it gives out a crisp, crackling, sharp music, which resounds from no other quires. To the eye it shows a colour belonging neither to blue-wove, nor yellow-wove, nor cream-laid, but a white, like no other white, either in paper and pulp. The three rough fringy edges are called the "deckelled" edges, being the natural boundary of the pulp when first moulded; the fourth is left smooth by the knife, which eventually cuts the two notes in twain. This paper is so thin that, when printed, there is much difficulty in making erasures; yet it is so strong, that "a water-leaf" (a leaf before the application of size) will support thirty-six pounds, and, with the addition of one grain of size, will hold half a hundredweight, without tearing. Yet the quantity of fibre of which it consists is no more than eighteen grains and a half.

Dividend day at the Bank has been admirably described, in the wittiest manner, by a modern essayist in Household Words:—"Another public creditor," says the writer, "appears in the shape of a drover, with a goad, who has run in to present his claim during his short visit from Essex. Near him are a lime-coloured labourer, from some wharf at Bankside, and a painter who has left his scaffolding in the neighbourhood during his dinner hour. Next come several widows—some florid, stout, and young; some lean, yellow, and careworn, followed by a gay-looking lady, in a showy dress, who may have obtained her share of the national debt in another way. An old man, attired in a stained, rusty, black suit, crawls in, supported by a long staff, like a weary pilgrim who has at last reached the golden Mecca. Those who are drawing money from the accumulation of their hard industry, or their patient self-denial, can be distinguished at a glance from those who are receiving the proceeds of unexpected and unearned legacies. The first have a faded, anxious, almost disappointed look, while the second are sprightly, laughing, and observant of their companions.