Early history The bank was founded under the name
Vere, Glyn & Hallifax. Joseph Vere was an experienced banker who was a member of the
Goldsmiths Company and had been involved with earlier banking partnerships;
Richard Glyn had been a prominent London
drysalter with widespread merchanting connections; and Thomas Hallifax was the son of a Barnsley clockmaker who had become chief clerk at
Martins Bank. Unlike many of the private London banks that relied on wealthy and titled customers, Glyn, Mills was originally a commercial institution; railway companies, the Sun Insurance and the
Hudson's Bay Company were leading customers. Vere died in 1766 leaving Glyn and Hallifax as partners; they traded satisfactorily until the financial panic of 1772 when the Bank had to stop payment for some weeks and narrowly avoided bankruptcy. One of those who provided temporary finance for the Bank was Sir John Salter, one-time
Lord Mayor of London, but only on condition that his son-in-law, William Mills, could enter the partnership. When the Bank reopened it did so as
Glyn, Hallifax and Mills. It was still of modest size: the number of staff was no more than seven in 1790, but over the next 40 years it rose to 51. The last Hallifax family member in the Bank died in 1850 and the bank became
Glyn, Mills & Co. Acquisition of Holt's and Child's Faced with the growing power of the “big five” banks after the
First World War Glyn Mills made its own acquisitions –
Holt & Co. in 1923 (briefly becoming Glyn, Mills Currie Holt & Co) and
Child & Co. in 1924 when the name reverted to Glyn Mills & Co. Holt's were army agents in Whitehall which in turn supported a private banking business. It was founded in 1809 by William Kirkland who opened an office in St James's. Regiments were gradually added to Holt's portfolio and the Navy agency of Woodhead and Co. was absorbed in 1915. Child's history predated that of the Bank of England and for over 100 years it had been owned by the
Earl of Jersey. Following the death of Lord Jersey, the executors were told that the Bank of England would not permit a sale to one of the Big Five. Glyn's, the largest private bank and the sole survivor of the private banks in the
Clearing House, seemed the most desirable association. The approach of the
Second World War threatened the viability of the private bank with the prospect of casualties and death duties straining capital resources. In 1939 the partners agreed to the bank's sale to the
Royal Bank of Scotland. Glyn Mills continued to trade separately, even to the point of acquiring the banking businesses of the British Overseas Bank and Anglo-International Bank in 1944, and of
A Ruffer & Sons in 1946. However, in 1969 the Royal Bank of Scotland was restructured and the holding company's subsidiaries in England and Wales (Glyn, Mills & Co.,
Williams Deacon's Bank, and the English and Welsh branches of The National Bank) were merged to form
Williams & Glyn's Bank. ==References==