| Activity | Before 1826, the Bank of England had made no formal moves to open branch offices outside of London. The poor economic situation of 1825, however, had seen the failure of many of the eight-to-nine-hundred informal 'shopkeeper-bankers' who operated in the provinces, with the consequent ruin of their customers. This highlighted the need for a change in the country banking system, and in January 1825, the Court of Directors of the Bank appointed a committee to consider and report on the establishment of branch banks. The committee recommended the establishment of Branch Banks if the government approved, and this approval was enshrined in an Act of Parliament of 1826 (The Country Bankers Act, 7, George IV, cap 46 section 15), the same Act which permitted the establishment of joint-stock banks as close as 65 miles from London, so that the branches once established would be competing with private joint-stock banks.
It was recommended that the Bank should focus on commercial and manufacturing towns, such as Leeds, Huddersfield or Wakefield, Birmingham, Gloucester, Liverpool and Manchester. The Bank's first branch was opened in Gloucester on 19 July 1826 and eight had been set up by the end of 1827. It was also decided that the Branch Banks should be controlled by a resident Agent and Deputy Agent, following the example of the Bank of Ireland's branches.
Relations between the Branches and Head Office were conducted via the Branch Banks Office (BBO) in London, from 1827 to 1975, the BBO itself forming part of the Chief Cashier's Department. The principal functions of the Branches were originally to increase the circulation of bank notes, to give the Bank more complete control of the whole paper money circulation, and also to afford the Bank some protection against competing banks. Later branches, in Plymouth and Portsmouth (which both opened in 1834), had special responsibility for dealing with and receiving money for the armed services. As the clearing banks developed, the branches provided clearing facilities for them. By the Second World War, the branches functions were settled as the distribution and receipt of currency, clearing facilities and the collection of government revenues, though during the war they also assumed responsibility for a large number of new government accounts and also for exchange control measures. In 1996 it was decided to close the existing branches and by the end of 1997, only Leeds remained open, as the Bank's North of England Cash Centre. The branch network was replaced by 12 regional agencies.
The Bank never had any overseas branches.
For further information including images, see The National Archive's Government Web Archive for Bank of England Branch Banks gallery https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20170704155306tf_/http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Pages/digitalcontent/archivedocs/gallery/branches/default0614-6209.aspx |
| Source | Michael Collins, The Bank of England and the Liverpool money market 1825-1850, PhD Thesis (London School of Economics, 1972).
R O Roberts, 'Financial crisis of the Swansea 'Branch Bank' of England 1826', National Library of Wales Journal 11/1 (1959).
Dieter Ziegler, The Bank of England in the provinces: the case of the Leicester Branch closing 1872 (Florence, 1989).
Dieter Ziegler, Central Bank, Peripheral Industry: the Bank of England in the Provinces, 1826-1913 (Leicester University Press, 1990). |