| Admin History | The Bank's first contact with the film industry appears to have been in February 1952 when Sir Frank Lee, Board of Trade, sought Governor Cameron Fromanteel Cobbold's help in obtaining someone from the City for the Board of the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC), established by the Board of Trade in 1949. Later that year Sir George Lewis French Bolton was approached for advice on the problems arising from the continuing losses made by British Lion Film Corporation, of which the NFFC was a large creditor. In 1954 the appointment of a full-time chairman of British Lion was seen as a possible alternative to receivership but the latter course was finally adopted in September, and a new company, British Lion Films Ltd, formed from the rump. The Bank was involved in the search for a chairman of British Lion Films Ltd to succeed Sir John Keeling and the question of whether additional finance could be extended to NFFC in the light of the Chancellor's directives to banks (1955 and again in 1966). |