In June 2007, this writer had been instrumental in convincing the European Association of Banking History to hold its annual conference in Malta, with the theme ‘Banking and Finance in the Mediterranean: A Historical Perspective’.
Some 200 banking historians and academics convened here, and a major follow-up of that very interesting meeting was the publication by British publishers Ashgate of all the papers presented at the convention by 20 researchers.
The volume, with the same name as that of the conference, now seems to be out of print/stock, and to date that volume remains what looks like the only academic attempt made so far to compile studies of how banking and finance have evolved over many years in the Mediterranean area.
But surprises and new discoveries are always hiding there in the wings as to what turn banking, its institutions, its key personalities and its transactions, would take in our common sea (and elsewhere, of course).
Developments would always be impacted upon by the vicissitudes of politics, politicians and, indeed, warring nations in the Mediterranean. The southern half of the Mediterranean remained under colonial rule during the interwar period, and on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, Gibraltar was one of the colonies still controlled by Britain.
As in many of its colonies, Britain would do all in its powers to totally ‘sterlingise’ the monetary system of Gibraltar, where a currency board was established by 1927.
But focus on banking in, and/or with, Gibraltar was multivariant in sources. The Anglo-Egyptian Bank Ltd, one of Barclays Bank’s predecessors, had branches in Gibraltar around 1917.
The Mediterranean Bank (a name which would later keep popping up on a number of occasions both in Malta and elsewhere) had a specific intention in its founding documentation for the setting up of branches also in Gibraltar, circa 1836. Around the 1930s, the non-British (but certainly colonial in nature) bank of Credit Foncier d’Algerie et de Tunisie also had strong interest in Gibraltar (and much elsewhere).
But now, thanks to colleague researcher Roy Clinton, who lives in Gibraltar and who is presently working on a PhD with Leicester University, a very interesting new finding has come up with regards to Gibraltar.
New information of importance for the history of banking in both of Malta and Gibraltar
This is the presence there of a bank named Bank of Gibraltar and Malta Limited during the period 1863 and 1916. The relatively short life of this institution would suggest a strong speculative element having been behind it.
In the UK National Archives at Kew (i.e. covering the records of the Board of Trade and its successors), one finds most files about dissolved companies and the bank’s company registration number was no. 278C and the relative source reference is BT 31/749/278C.
The date of 1916 mentioned above is not supported. While the document clearly states that the Bank of Gibraltar and Malta was “incorporated in 1863”, 1916 only appears in the context of what is stated as “dissolved before 1916…..”. And all of this must be placed in the context of what the “liquidator for direction” states in document no. 1867G/40 dated March 22, 1867 (UK National Archives C16/414/G40):
“In the matter of the Companies Act 1862 and in the matter of the Bank of Gibraltar and Malta Limited, let all parties concerned attend at my Chamber in the Rolls Yard Chancery Lane, Middlesex, on Friday the 12th April, 1867, at 11.50 of the clock in the forenoon on the hearing of an application on the part of the liquidator for direction as to the sum of Stg47-17-4 now in their hands.
“Dated this 22nd day of March 1867, Romilly, Master of the Rolls.
“This summons was taken out by George Ashley and James Tee of 1a Fredericks Place, Old Jewry in the City of London, Solicitors, The Liquidators.”
For those interested in philately, it may be added that this document carries affixed to it the official Chancery Court postage stamp to a value of five shillings, showing the head of, presumably, Queen Victoria, and with the stamp cancellation having been made by pen. It is a matter for further clarification as to whether, and how, this value of stamp duty was related to the stated final liquidation remnant value of the bank, i.e. 47 pounds, 17 shillings and four pence.
It will be noted that this functionary convened said meeting to be held in Middlesex. And, apart from the matter of whether the lifespan of the Bank of Gibraltar and Malta Limited must be considered as having been 1863 to 1867, or 1863 to 1916, it still is factually short enough to suggest that the founders’ initiative was strongly speculative in nature. And what sort of bank would this have been? Commercial or merchant banking?
A.S.J. Baster, in his now seminal work for banking historians, The Imperial Banks (P.S. King & Son, 1929), makes very clear that this was a period when entrepreneurs, based in both the UK and the colonies, considered banking and generally commercial adventures in the colonies as an important source of possible enrichment.
My colleague Clinton quotes the names of Mancunian businessmen Frederick Huth and Anthony Gibbs as having engaged in merchant banking and bills-of-exchange business with the bank, and trade in the cotton business – appearing repeatedly in the old records of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce − as often having been the subject of transactions carried out by the bank.
Baster provides other details about the Bank of Gibraltar and Malta Ltd. The bank’s name appears in a list on page 126 of his book which includes 27 other imperial banks. The bank’s date of registration is shown as February 4, 1863, and the original nominal capital of the bank was £500,000.
But, again, the underlying speculative nature of the initiative is indicated by the fact that only seven shares of £100 each were taken up, and that none of that amount was recorded as having been actually paid up. But, in the last column on the right of Baster’s table, the bank is still recorded as “still working”!
Charters of new imperial banks seem to have been numerous during the years 1790 to 1840, and Baster expresses the view that banks with limited liability were less subject to failure than those with unlimited liability.
I consider this new information sourced by Clinton as being of importance for the history of banking in both of Malta and Gibraltar, and I am very grateful to him for having shared it with me.
John A. Consiglio is the author of A History of Banking in Malta (Progress Press. 2006), and co-editor of Banking and Finance in the Mediterranean: A Historical Perspective (Ashgate, 2012) with J.C. Martinez Oliva, Banca d’Italia and Gabriel Tortella, University of Alcalá, Spain.