SECRETS OF A BANK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 13 July 1929, Page 8

SECRETS OF A BANK

HOW-A RUN WAS MET . --h- 1 ' • Subterfuges resorted to by the Bank of England to meet the run following the collapse jof ‘ the Sea Company were mentioned by Mr M. Marston Acres in a recent lecture before the London Society. - Mr Acres, who was for thirty years an official of the bank, said that. one. device'adopted in order to )gain time was to pay'demands for cash in shillings and sixpences. l The counting was a long pro- : cess; Another device was for: the cashiers to pay'large sums, to certain ■ friendly individuals; who went out at one door with bags of money and returned shortly, afterward by another entrance to pay it all in again. • . : The practice of keeping a military guard at the Bank dated from the time ; of the Gordon Riots’in 1750. At first tne City' Corppration. ‘raised . strong ob- / jectioh to what they. dpemed an interference with their control of the 'City. The citizen s generally complained bitterly of the arrogant .behaviour of the soldiers, who marched two abreast.along the Strand, Fleet Street, and Cheap- ( . side, jostling and pushing people outof their way, . ; Various , theories had been put forward, said Mr Acres, to account for the Bank’s nickname, ‘‘The . Old Lady -of Thread-needle Street.” He thought it originated from a cartoon bearing that title, which was drawn by James Gillray in 1791,.'and depicted William Pitt endeavouring to obtain possession of the Bank’s gold. Gillray probably got his inspiration from a speech made by Rich- • and Brinsley Sheridan in the House of Commons in March. ,1797, when Sheridan referred to the Rank'as “an elderly lady in' the City of great credit and long standing, who had unfortunately got into bad company.” . .