Brief History of Sussex Banks - Page2

 

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Failures of Banks

 

The year 1825 was, for some reason or other, a bad year for banks. Mr Ellman in his delightful book ( Recollections of a Sussex Parson. London, Skeffington & Son, 1912, p. 70.) narrates some of the devices by which banks at that time tried to stay the run of their customers upon them to draw out their deposits in gold.

 

A favourite scheme enacted when a customer entered the bank to claim his cash was to take a lot of sovereigns and heat them in a shovel and then to tilt them on the counter to the customer who, when he had been able to gather them up, would go out and tell those who were waiting outside that there was no need for alarm because the bank was making sovereigns so fast that there was no time for them to cool before they were paid out!

 

Another more obvious, but not less effective. scheme was that while a crowd of customers were waiting in the bank for their money, two clerks, with seeming great exertion, would drag up to the counter a sack apparently full of sovereigns - which was really full of stones with a top layer of gold! In this way the waiting customers were led to think that their money was quite safe while the bank held such a sackful of gold.

 

The fact is, the country was feeling then the repercussion of the Napoleonic War which consummated at Waterloo in 1815, just as the England of 1931 experienced in its economic life the consequences of the Great War, and was reduced to such a financial condition as it had never known in the whole course of its history.

 

Banking had not reached the scientific level which it occupies today. Each local bank had to stand alone on its own merits, and when the storm of panic beat against it was unable to resist the pressure.

 

 

George Head & Son, East Grinstead

 

A failure of this kind, though of later date than the fatal year 1825, occurred when the Bank of George Head & Son, East Grinstead, suspended payment. The building stood on the south side of the main street, just opposite the last house of the middle row. It was established by a Mr George Head in 1842 and stopped payment on the 24th of February, 1892, failing to the amount of £162,802. Mr George Head had died in December, 1890, and had been succeeded in the Bank by his son, Mr Searle Head.

 

There was much exasperation of feeling shown in the place at the time. A mob, numbering some five hundred persons, surrounded Brook House - the home of Mr Head, a mile or more out of East Grinstead westwards - trampling down the garden and at night giving " rough music." On one occasion Mr Head was escorted to his home under the protection of three policemen, one of them mounted.

 

The ill-feeling was the more inflamed by the fact that just before the failure two considerable sums of money had been transferred to ladies of the family; but to their credit it should be known that the money was immediately returned by those ladies to the assistance of the Bank. Awkward revelations resulted from the failure showing persons who had overdrafts on the Bank who were not generally supposed to be in that condition.

 

 

The Brighton Union Bank

Commonly known as that of Hall, Bevan, West & Bevan.

 

This Bank was founded in 1805 when Thomas Browne, Nathaniel Hall, Richard Lashmar and Thomas West, with a capital of £1,500, entered into a deed of co-partnership in the trade and business of a banker for a probationary period of seven years. ( See History of Barclay's Bank, Limited, compiled by P.W.Matthews, edited by Anthony Tuke. London, 1926).

 

The premises of the Brighton Union Bank at 6. 7, 8 and later at 9, North Street, Brighton, are the bank-buildings of Barclays of the present day. The first customer of the bank was Daniel Constable, who carried on the business of a draper at 3, North Street. He sold his business in 1808 to Mr S. Hannington, and it is interesting to note that the well known Messrs Hannington of Brighton kept their account with this bank to the present time until it's closure in 2001.

 

Before the amalgamation the Union Bank had opened branches at Cuckfield prior to 1866, at Hove in 1871, at Burgess Hill in 1877, at Haywards Heath in 1878 (which for many years was a sub-branch to Cuckfield), at Preston in 1880, and later at Shoreham - all of which became branches of Barclays. The subsequent history of the Union Bank shows that clever and mysterious robberies, such as would nowadays engage the attention of the police in high-power cars, are not confined to the present age.

 

In February, 1812, a parcel of Union Bank-notes, of value between £3,000 and £4,000, consigned from London agents to the bank at Brighton, was placed in a box inside the locked box-seat of the Blue Coach for transmission to Brighton; but on the arrival of the coach in the evening at Brighton the box-seat was found unlocked and the notes had disappeared.

 

The perpetrators of the robbery were never discovered. Those who care to read such evidence as could be collected at the time will find it given in the History of Barclays, quoted there from Bishop's Peeps into the Past, a history of old Brighton. But we hope that if they should peruse it they will come to the same conclusion as ourselves, that the robbery was not committed on the soil of honest Sussex but at some spot before the coach entered our county.

 

The mystery of the theft is still unsolved and therefore, if our police force in Sussex ever sharpen their wits during their leisure hours by playing the thief-game, the problem of the Union Bank robbery may form the basis of one of their games. Only they should remember that coaches did not run like motor-cars from start to finish without a stop, but in stages of a few miles, pulling up at wayside inns where the coach-man and passengers would refresh themselves, and a new team of horses be brought out.

 

And others may see in this practice the origin of the habit by which even at the present day we direct people along the road by mention of the inns which they should pass, or near which they should take a turn.

 

The Chichester Bank

Commonly known as that of Milbanke, Woodbridge, Gruggen & Gauntlett.

 

Another bank which Barclays grasped in its tentacles a little later than the others, in 1900. was at Chichester, in West Sussex, and known at the time of the amalgamation as Milbanke, Woodbridge, Gruggen & Gauntlett, or, colloquially, as the Chichester Bank.

 

It was founded in 1809 by James Hack, of Chichester. and Charles Dendy, of Sidlesham, and without any branches confined its business to Chichester and its neighbourhood. It was a genuine institution of Sussex men, the partners in 1827 being Charles Dendy, of Sidlesham, merchant; Harry Comper, citizen and alderman of Chichester; William Gruggen (the elder) surgeon, of Chichester; Charles Cook Dendy, of the south suburbs of Chichester, merchant (son of Charles Dendy); William Gruggen (the younger), surgeon, of Chichester (son of William Gruggen); Henry Comper, of Chichester, gentleman (son of Harry Comper).

 

The title of the bank underwent many changes in the course of its history as old partners died and new ones came into the business.

 

Conclusion

 

There may be two or three old local Sussex Banks not included in this review. This means no disrespect to them; doubtless they did good, useful service in their day. It means only that the writer has not been able to discover them.

 

Good-bye to them all! There were many who regreted the passing of the old local banker, the shrewd, kindly, courteous, genial man of business, so often for some reason or other a prominent sportsman of the neighbourhood. who knew personally all his customers and was their friendly adviser in their financial matters.

 

But there can be no doubt that the county is financially the stronger under the system of the present banking arrangments. The old local bankers could not have met the strain and stress or dealt successfully with the complexities of modern business.

 

They could not, unless they were enormously rich, keep their capital in the bank and at the same time provide for the interests of their family, as sons and daughters, grown up, required their portions. Moreover, they were not in a position to refuse requests from customers for advances of money under insecure circumstances, lest useful balances at other times should be withdrawn.

 

Peace be to their ashes! They have gone; they have left kindly memories behind them.

 

They served our forefathers well and faithfully.

 

 

 

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