There were a large number of private banks in England in the first half of the 19^th Century.  Set up by local businessmen - such as merchants, manufacturers, brewers, lawyers, etc - these private banks played an important role in the local economy at a time when the Bank of England and other London-based banks rarely stirred outside of the capital.  Because many of the bankers who ran them were originally engaged in a business, for which banking was a sideline launched to fund their activities, they were knowledgeable about their borrowers and the trades in which they were engaged, and many kept customer accounts and issued their own banknotes.  Most of these small banks were closely linked to at least one London bank or 'agent' that invested their customers' money and settled payments to other banks.

However, the existence of many small banks empowered to issue their own banknotes caused serious stability problems, and during the period 1809 to 1830 alone, over 300 of them failed. The Bank Charter Act of 1844 created the supremacy of the Bank of England and put in place the process that would lead to its eventual monopoly of the issue of banknotes in England and Wales (but not in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands).  This monopoly did not take full effect until 1921, when Lloyds Bank took over the last private bank of issue, the firm of Fox, Fowler and Company, who had conducted a banking business at Wellington, Somerset, since 1787.

So much for the background.

Customers entering the National Westminster Bank in Tring High Street (in the photo above, it's the imposing gable-roofed building above the grey car) might not realise that this was once Butcher’s Bank, a private bank established in 1836 by Thomas Butcher, a seed and corn merchant, in partnership with his son Thomas.  The partnership later expanded to include Thomas junior's sons, Frederick and George, and the business became known as Thomas Butcher & Sons; it was also known as Tring Old Bank and was represented at Aylesbury and Chesham on market days.  The bank later became the Tring, Aylesbury & Chesham Bank, opening branches in Aylesbury (1837), Chesham (1840) and Berkhamsted (1900).  According to the surviving records, Thomas Butcher & Sons issued bank notes between 1836 and 1900, when it was taken over by the London bankers Prescott, Dimsdale, Cave, Tugwell & Co (est. 1766).  The known denominations of banknotes issued by Thomas Butcher & Sons were £5 and £10. In 1844 the total recorded circulation was £13,531.

Butcher’s Bank is long gone, but another organisation that grew out of a suggestion by Thomas Butcher Jnr. is thriving; indeed, it’s the oldest building society in the world.  Not the Halifax or the Abbey National, as you might think, but the Chesham.  When founded in 1845 it was not the first building society, but earlier societies have since gone out of business or merged with others (the earliest known was Ketley's Building Society, named after the landlord of the Golden Cross Inn in Birmingham, where it held its meetings).

At that time the people of Chesham lived mostly in and around its centre.  The town had long-established industries based on local products; the beech woods gave material for making essential implements, the river Chess provided power and water for mills as it had since Saxon times; there were tanneries, breweries, paper-making and other trades; straw-plaiting was a cottage industry for women and girls; and the boots and shoes made here were already supplying the London market.  Bricks and tiles were staple products.  As industries developed, they employed a greater proportion of the local population.  They started to earn more money and began looking for a secure way to invest it.  Thomas Butcher Jnr., who lived in the town, suggested to a group of influential local men that a building society could operate successfully in Chesham.

Both Thomas Butcher Jnr. and his son Frederick were among the Society's trustees, while among the early directors was one Arthur Liberty, whose business later grew into the internationally famous Regent Street department store.  All of gave their services free; in the Society's early days, only the Secretary received payment.

Another legacy of the Butcher family is the Village Hall at Cholesbury.  Built in 1895 on land given to the people of Cholesbury by Frederick Butcher, a grandson of the Bank’s founder Thomas, it’s an attractive Victorian building situated at the Buckland Common end of Cholesbury.  Originally just a "parish room" it was soon taken over by the Men's Club, which charged 1p a week membership and did its best to exclude rowdies from the neighbouring villages.

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A 19^th century ten pound note issued by the Tring, Aylesbury and Chesham Bank, unsigned and undated, was recently offered for sale at £250. Signing and dating? Banknotes were originally hand-written, although from about 1725 onwards they were partially printed, but cashiers still had to sign each note and make them payable to someone.  The ‘£’ sign and first digit were printed, but other numerals were added by hand, as were the name of the payee, the cashier’s signature, the date and the number.  Although early banknotes could be for uneven amounts, most were for round sums. By 1855, banknotes had become entirely machine printed and payable to ‘the bearer’.


Acknowledgement: we are grateful to the Archivist of The Royal Bank of Scotland, of which Butcher’s bank is a constituent, for providing much of the information on this page about the Bank and its notes in circulation, and to the Secretary of the Chesham Building Society for information about the Society's early years.