Theodore Gregory (editor) - Select Statutes, Documents and Reports Relating to British Banking, 1832-1928: vol 1 1832-1844

VOLUME 1 18321844

Selected and with an introduction by

T. E. GREGORY

First published by Oxford University
Press (1929) and now reprinted by
arrangement with them.

This edition published by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park,
Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN

First published 1929
New impression 1964

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

ISBN 0 7146 1225 1 (Set)

ISBN 0 415 41523 3 (hbk)

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths
to ensure the quality of this reprint but
points out that some imperfections
in the original may be apparent

Printed and bound by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne

CONTENTS OF VOL. I

CONTENTS OF VOL. II

PART II. THE BANK OF ENGLAND AFTER THE BANK ACT OF 1844

18478. THE CRISIS OF 1847

The Petition of the Merchants, Bankers, and Traders of London against the Bank Charter Act

The Treasury Letter of 1847 relaxing the Bank Act and reply of the Bank

Evidence of the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England before the Secret Committee of the House of Lords on the Commercial Distress, 7th February 1848

Evidence of the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England before the Secret Committee of the House of Commons on the Commercial Distress, 7th March 1848

Extracts from Report from the Secret Committee of the House of Lords on the Commercial Distress, 28th July 1848

1854. THE END OF THE USURY ACTS

17 & 18 Vict. c. 90

18578. THE BANK ACTS BEFORE PUBLIC OPINION; AND THE 1857 CRISIS

Evidence of the former Governor and present Governor of the Bank of England before the Select Committee on the Bank Acts, 19th May 1857:

The Bank Rate as a Means of Control

Market Rate and Bank Rate

Evidence of William Newmarch, 5th June 1857:

The Separation of Departments of the Bank of England

The Management of the Bank

The Level of the Bank Rate

Correspondence between the Government and the Bank of England in the Crisis of 1857

Evidence of the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England before the Select Committee on the Bank Acts, 16th March 1858:

The Bank of England and the Discount Market

Evidence of David Salomons, 19th March 1858:

Deposit Rates and the Safety of Joint Stock Banking

Evidence of George Holgate Foster, 13th April 1858:

Deposit Rates of the London Joint Stock Banks

Evidence of Sampson Samuel Lloyd, 16th April 1858:

The Bank of England and the Provincial Banks of Issue

Report of the Select Committee on the Bank Acts, 1st July 1858

1866. OVEREND, GURNEY, AND CO.

Correspondence between the Government and the Bank of England

The Times on the Crisis and its Lessons

The Economist and the Crisis

Report of the Provisional Liquidators

1890. THE BARING CRISIS

Comments from The Times

Comments from The Economist

1907. THE AMERICAN CRISIS OF 1907

Comments from The Economist

PART III. JOINT STOCK BANKING

1836. JOINT STOCK BANKING

Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons on Joint Stock Banks, 20th August 1836

184462. THE JOINT STOCK BANKING CODE

7 & 8 Vict. c. 113 (An Act to Regulate the Joint Stock Banks in England) (5th September 1844)

20 & 21 Vict. c. 49 (An Act to amend the Law relating to Banking Companies) (17th August 1857)

21 & 22 Vict. c. 91 (An Act to enable Joint Stock Banking Companies to be formed on the Principle of Limited Liability) (2nd August 1858)

25 & 26 Vict. c. 89 (An Act for the Incorporation, Regulation, and Winding-up of Trading Companies and other Associations) (7th August 1862)

1875. THE LAST INQUIRY INTO PRIVATE NOTE ISSUES

Evidence of William Hamilton Crake before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Banks of Issue, 8th July 1875:

Bank Acceptances

Evidence of Walter Bagehot, 22nd July 1875:

Single or Multiple Issues

1878. THE GLASGOW BANK SCANDAL

The Economist and Limited Liability

Joint Stock Banking Liability:

42 & 43 Vict. c. 76 (An Act to amend the Law with respect to the Liability of Members of Banking and other Joint Stock Companies) (15th August 1879)

PART IV. THE WAR AND POST-WAR PERIOD

1910. THE BANK OF ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF WAR

Interview between the Governor and Directors of the Bank of England and the National Monetary Commission of the U.S.A

191418. THE CURRENCY AND BANK NOTES ACTS

4 & 5 Geo. V, c. 14 (An Act to authorise the issue of Currency Notes, and to make Provision with respect to the Note Issue of Banks) (6th August 1914)

4 & 5 Geo. V, c. 72 (An Act to amend the Currency and Bank Notes Act, 1914) (28th August 1914)

Report of the Treasury Committee on Bank Amalgamations, 1st May 1918

191819. THE CUNLIFFE LIMIT

First Interim Report of the Cunliffe Committee on Currency and Foreign Exchanges, 15th August 1918

Final Report of the Cunliffe Committee, 3rd December 1919

Circulation of Currency Notes: Treasury Minute of 15th December 1919

19258. THE RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD

Report of the Committee on the Currency and Bank of England Note Issues, 5th February 1925

The Gold Standard Act, 13th May 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. V, c. 29)

Currency and Bank Notes Act, 1928 (18 & 19 Geo. 5. c. 13)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

The Bank and Royal Exchange, Cornhill, circa 1846.

The Bank looking towards the Mansion House, 1848.

VOLUME II

The Bank and Mansion House, King William Street, 1850

Panic in Lombard Street

T HE student who turns from the literature of the Heroic Age of British monetary controversy in order to attempt a study of the original sources relating to the antecedents of our modern banking situation will find himself confronted with a jungle of blue books and Parliamentary discussions, pamphlets and tracts and leading articles: a jungle at first sight so impenetrable that he may well despair. For it is characteristic of the period of middle-class ascendancy after 1832 that it produced much heat and little light; many massive volumes of evidence and statistics, but no classic reports; much legislation but, for a long time at least, no final solution of the various problems to be faced. These volumes are an attempt to bring together some of the material by which the growth of British banking policy and of British banking institutions, in the Victorian era particularly, can be illustrated and illuminated. The original intention was to cover the period 18321925 in a single volume, and to accompany it by a volume covering the rise of British banking and the vexed era of the Restriction and the Resumption of Cash Payments. It very soon became apparent that, unless the book was to be nothing but a collection of mere snippets, restriction of scope and extension of space were indispensable. Thus very little will be found in these pages of the detail of banking practice: the development of Colonial Banking and contemporaneous events in Scotland and Ireland have had to be excluded, and the development of the capital market neglected. These are defects of which the present writer is fully aware, and he can only plead that even within the field so restricted, the material from which he was forced to choose was so overwhelming that but a small fragment can be presented here.