London and Provincial Bank Limited 1864-1918

The London & Provincial is a well documented example of Barclays' constituent joint stock banks that were formed in the mid-1800s. There are full sets of memorandum & articles of association and of minutes of the board.

There is a comprehensive series of registers of shareholders (recording date of allotment, and address, occupation or social status of members), extending across the life of the company in 78 volumes. In 1899 the board rescinded its earlier prohibition of married women from being accepted as shareholders in their own sole name.

A volume of detailed notes on staff conduct and disciplinary cases submitted by managers to head office from 1879 onwards, known to contemporaries as 'The Black Book', is an unusual survival amongst the archives of Barclays and its constituent banks.

The staff records include a good example of the documentation of women clerks recruited by provincial banks during the First World War.

Company

• Memorandum and Articles of Association 1864-1918
• Agreement for transfer of business from Provincial Banking Corporation to London and Provincial Bank 1871

Board and Directors

• Minutes (not indexed but annotated with marginal headings) of board of directors 1864-1918
• Agenda and resolution books for board meetings 1871-73, 1901, 1916-18
• Minutes of Rota Committee (supervisory committee meeting daily to approve loans, cheques paid, staff appointments, customer accounts, sealing documents etc.) 1868-78, 1880-82
• Register of matters to be reported to the board by the Rota Committee (overdue and doubtful customer accounts) 1914-18
• Annual and half-yearly reports and accounts (see also Accounting records below) 1864, 1866, 1872, 1881, 1900-08, 1914-1918

Shareholders

• Registers of shareholders and allotment of shares (names entered alphabetically) 1863-1918
• Shareholders' meeting minutes 1871-1918
• Share certificate 1906

Management records

• Premises register 1857-87
• Deeds, correspondence, policies and other papers documenting bank premises 1860-1918
• Head Office Circulars 1876-1918
• Head Office Circular warning branch managers of an intended fraud upon the Bank 1902
• Instructions to be observed in conducting business in branches 1913
• Rules for processing advances, discounts, securities etc. 1915
• Album of notices, letters, newspaper cuttings etc: branch openings, move of head office at Lothbury, Bank Holidays, specimen cheques 1900-12

Accounting records

• Auditor's notes and papers including half-yearly accounts 1879-99
• Impersonal account ledgers 1910-12, 1914-19
• Branch profit and loss ledgers 1914-17

Staff

• Staff registers including guarantees and premiums (female staff engaged 1915 onwards) 1884-93, 1900-19
• Conduct and disciplinary reports on staff ('The Black Book') 1879-1917
• Applications for clerkships inc specimen questions from arithmetic examination paper 1897-1906
• Report of proceedings at presentation banquet for general manager John Woodrow Cross 1900
• Regulations for guidance of the officers of the bank 1914
• Roll of Honour commemorating staff serving and killed in World War One 1914-19
• Newspaper cutting of short biography of Brinsley Nixon, a founder and original director of Bank 1885

Amalgamation papers

• Agreements, correspondence, circulars and other papers including analysis of balance sheets 1871, 1904-18

Photographs, paintings and prints

• Montage photograph of managers of the the Bank 1898

Artefacts

• Coin bags

Originally called the Provincial Banking Corporation, this bank was formed in 1864 to take over the firm of Day, Nicholson and Stone of Rochester and Chatham, and the East of England Bank, the latter having absorbed the Norfolk and Norwich Joint Stock Banking Company. The Provincial next absorbed the Bank of Wales in 1865. The company was reconstructed at the end of 1870, being renamed as the London and Provincial Bank Ltd. with an authorised capital of £1,000,000, by which time it had three London branches and country offices across the south-east, East Anglia and Wales. In its early history the bank catered mainly for small tradesmen and private customers with limited means. 1871 saw the acquisition of the business of Fincham and Simpson in Norfolk and Suffolk. The bank thereafter concentrated its attention on the London suburbs, South Wales and the Eastern Counties.

The bank continued to grow by opening new branches, and acquired the firm of J and J W Walters of Haverfordwest in 1872, and the North Kent Bank in 1878. Between 1873 and 1888 its branches increased from 41 to 76 and thereafter suburban expansion was rapid, but it was not until 1891 that a branch was opened at an English commercial centre outside the London area, namely Bristol. Further expansion into major provincial cities was slow: branches were opened at Liverpool in 1909 and at Birmingham in 1913. Similarly, the London and Provincial was reluctant to become a clearing bank, preferring to use its London agent (Glyn, Mills, Currie and Co.) for clearing until 1914.

By 1917 the bank had 232 branches and sub-branches. At the end of 1917 the London and Provincial amalgamated with one of its formidable rivals, the London and South Western, to form The London, Provincial and South Western Bank, which in turn was acquired by Barclays on 2nd October 1918.

Records are arranged to reflect the history of the company

Barclays Group Archives is open to research visitors throughout the year, by appointment.
E-mail: grouparchives@barclays.com
Full contact details: Barclays Group Archives, Dallimore Road, Wythenshawe, Manchester M23 9JA. Telephone 0330 1510159

Customer records are subject to extended closure/access conditions.

Former historical records section of company secretary's office.

Records transferred subsequently from other Barclays offices.

Searchable catalogue available locally on BGA's 'Archives' database; bespoke lists may be generated from specific search requests

Reproduction or publication of records is subject to the written permission of an archivist

Barclays had a historical records section in head office from at least the 1960s, managed by an official with the title of archivist. In 1989 the first professionally trained archivist was appointed, with the remit of centralising historical records and collecting additional material deemed worthy of permanent preservation.

The London and Provincial had nearly 300 branches and agencies, and lists of records classified as being from branch provenance can also be produced from BGA's database catalogue.

Barclays Group Archives reference library

• London and Provincial Bank directories 1908-19
• Head Office Circulars now in force 1907

The official published histories of Barclays, especially the most recent volume, are based largely upon the archives:

• M Ackrill & L Hannah, Barclays: the business of banking 1690-1996 (Cambridge: University Press 2001); this volume won the Wadsworth Prize for business history
• P W Matthews & A W Tuke, History of Barclays Bank Limited: including the many private and joint stock banks amalgamated and affiliated with it (Blades, East & Blades 1926)