This is not a usual kind of book about banking or bankers. The authors were interested in the lives of women who joined in partnership banking. These women began working in what had been a male preserve before ideas of feminism and women’s rights had suggested this as a possibility. They were feminists before feminism existed! Responsibility as partners in banks did not absolve them from their duties as wives and mothers. So we hear about domestic matters - childbirth, sickness, dinner services, furniture, watercolour painting and riding accidents. There is also a background of links with commerce and business which made the British economy so vibrant and dynamic at this formative time. The banking industry grew and developed in response to the needs of enterprise in shipping, textile manufacture, mining, engineering and general commerce. In short, these bankers created the art of multi-tasking. The banks and bankers described here came from different backgrounds within the parameters of comfortable middle-class families, rooted in local communities and enterprises. This book is full of banking history and characters and mercifully light on references to subprime lending, liquidity ratios, securitisation, or even bonuses. This is an excellent time for it.

WOMEN WHO MADE MONEY

Women partners in British Private Banks 1752–1906By Margaret Dawes Nesta Selwyn

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2010 Margaret Dawes and Nesta Selwyn
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-3725-5

Contents

Foreword................................................................................................vAcknowledgements........................................................................................viiPreface.................................................................................................xiIntroduction............................................................................................xiiiChapter One. Independent Wives..........................................................................1Chapter Two. Founders and Opening Partnerships..........................................................17Chapter Three. Wives in partnership with their husbands.................................................29Chapter Four. Women in partnership with other relatives.................................................35Chapter Five. Widows inheriting banks from their husbands...............................................55Chapter Six. Widows inheriting banks from their husbands................................................79Chapter Seven. Widows inheriting banks from their husbands (Cheshire and Yorkshire).....................93Chapter Eight. Widows inheriting banks from their husbands (Midlands and Wales).........................101Chapter Nine. Widows inheriting banks from their husbands...............................................123Conclusions.............................................................................................139References..............................................................................................151Table Indicating the fates of the women bankers.........................................................167Index of women bankers and the chapters in which they appear............................................171

Chapter One

Independent Wives

Sarah Child, Sarah Sophia Fane, Harriot Coutts

The most audacious women bankers carried on partnerships from which their husbands were excluded, in spite of the laws debarring her from owning property, which constitutes the greatest obstacle to a married woman engaging in business on her own account.

The law has always offered loop-holes. Provision could be made in her marriage settlement for a woman to retain the use of her own property. Harriot Mellon's prudent management of her savings before marriage so impressed Thomas Coutts, the banker, that he made just such a settlement on her when they were married.

It was also possible for a woman's property to be placed in the hands of trustees before her marriage, so that her husband could have no use of it without her consent. Elizabeth Patton, banker at Chester, left her money to her daughter to be placed in the hands of trustees so that it could not be used by her son-in-law who was much encumbered by debt. The trustees she appointed were in fact related to her son-in-law, indicating that it was not a specific but a general wish to safeguard the bequest. A Hastings banker, Leonora Tilden Samson, expressed her feelings strongly in her will by only leaving £100 to her late husband's brother, but a meticulously worded bequest to her sister-in-law, his wife Mary, which states that the interest on the bulk of her estate was to go to Mary 'for her sole and disparate use.' This was to be independent of any debts or contracts of her present husband or any future husband. The will further states that Mary was to have the money whether 'sole or couverte,' that is to say, whether single or married. The con dence felt by these women bankers in the ability of women to manage money is clear enough.

Sarah Child

The first of these independent wives was Sarah Child. Robert Child, no doubt mindful of his mother Agatha's successful career in banking, (see Chapter 5) left the senior partnership to his wife Sarah on his death in July 1782.

Sarah carried on the bank of Francis Child Esq & Co until her death in 1793. She had married Matthew Ducie, 2nd Baron Tortworth, in 1791 but never included him in her partnership. Lord Ducie's estate in Gloucestershire was known for the Tortworth Chestnut, believed to have grown from a nut planted around 800 AD, in the reign of King Egbert. Sarah and her rst husband, Robert Child, had one daughter, Sarah Anne, born 26 August 1764 and died 1793. She had shown her own brand of independence by eloping in May of 1782 to Gretna Green with John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, a neighbour in Berkeley Square, nicknamed 'Rapid' and heartily disliked by her father.

Robert pursued his daughter and her seducer along the road to Scotland until one of his carriage horses was shot by the Earl's postillion, and the couple escaped, a story much quoted and often with embellishments. This was scarcely a circumstance likely to reconcile Robert to his new son-in-law. He never forgave the couple but before he died in July of that same year, did give his legal consent to the marriage.

Sarah Anne and her husband had one son and four daughters. Robert, in spite of his consent, was determined that his property should not go to the eldest son, who would inherit the title and the hated name. Not wanting it to go outside the family however, he entailed his fortune and his bank, after the death of his wife, to his daughter's second son or her eldest daughter.

Sarah Sophia Fane

As no second son was born, the eldest daughter, Sarah Sophia Fane, became at the age of eight, when her grandmother died in 1793 an heiress and the owner of Child's bank.

Sources differ about the date of her partnership in the bank, one listing her as senior partner in 1795, when she was only ten. Another, more reasonably, gives 1806, when Sarah Sophia reached her majority, as the date when she became senior partner. However that may be, she continued in this position until her death in 1867.

In 1804 she married George Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey, who in 1812 assumed additionally the name of Child. The couple had four sons and three daughters. With such dominant women among her ancestors, one cannot wonder that even while producing this very respectable sized family, Lady Jersey never admitted her husband into the bank partnership, but proved herself to be a most redoubtable banker. Historians differ on the role played by Sarah Sophia. One commentator did not nd it easy to accept a woman in so responsible a position and suggested a frivolous approach, even putting forward the idea that the Countess of Jersey merely went to the bank parlours to read magazines. Other commentators describe her as taking a keen interest in the bank, inspecting the books, deciding who has to receive an increase, or decrease, in salary. Such involvement of course led to resentment on occasion. An instance is the argument, which ran for ten years, concerning her wish to reinstate her cousin Vere Fane in the partnership. The existing partners, she stated, had allowed a fraud of £25,000 to be committed by a junior clerk. The other partners, nevertheless, wished to continue the practice of promoting clerks to partnership in order of seniority of service rather than introducing outsiders. Some observers found that the influence of women on business ethics showed that 'the ideal of service was not for men alone,' a generalization not altogether appreciated by Lady Jersey's partners. In their eyes, she was intent on disturbing the established pattern of running the firm and ensuring its continuity.

The argument ended in a compromise. Vere Fane never became a partner but Lady Jersey acquired the right of dismissal of any partner. Child's bank continued to ourish, undeterred by this provision, and on Lady Jersey's death in 1867 she left her grandson, Albert George Child Villiers, 7th Earl of Jersey, a partnership. She had clearly arranged to keep her separate representation even after her death, for in 1888 partners are listed in two groups, as 'representatives of Sarah Sophia, Countess of Jersey, deceased, the Earl of Jersey and Frederick William Price,' and then again Frederick William Price, with 'Charles Thorold Fane, Frederick George Hilton Price and George Lionel Dashwood.'

The challenges of business may well have been seen to a woman like Sarah Sophia as a welcome escape from the limitations of social life, so frustrating to an independent minded woman, but to which, without the bank partnership, she would have been restricted. Child's bank flourished for many years after her death, being sold in 1924, to pay death duties, to Glyn, Mills Banking Company. This bank was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1939. Child & Co continued to trade under its own name as an office of the Royal Bank and later reestablished its private banking tradition under the old Marygold trade sign. The Royal Bank of Scotland itself came close to collapse in the major banking crisis of 2008-2009, and had to be rescued by massive government intervention. As a result of this RBS was effectively owned to a very large extent by the British taxpayer at the time that this book went to press in 2010.

Harriot Coutts

The history of the woman who became Mrs Thomas Coutts and later the Duchess of St Albans does not exactly resemble the stereotype of a staid banker. She could not have foretold in her childhood, the eminence which she would eventually achieve. Among a number of references to Harriot's mother Sarah, several varied accounts have been found. They all contain a reference to Sarah as a beautiful Irish peasant girl from Cork. She is variously described as a cotter's daughter, a shop-girl in her native city, a milliner, and a wardrobe mistress as her application to some travelling players to work did not prosper because she could not read nor write. From various sources she claims to have married Matthew Mellon, an officer in the Madras Native Infantry who deserted her two months after they were married on the '12th' day (i.e. 6 January) 1777 and that Harriot was born on 11 November the same year. It was even hinted that Lieut. Mellon was 'a person of high rank.' An alternative version states that Mellon died of consumption on an East Indian ship between the Cape and Madras. As no Lieutenant Matthew Mellon has been found in Dodwell, Miles' Indian army list among the of cers of the Madras Native Infantry between 1760 and 1834, his part in the romantic history has not been substantiated.

Harriot's mother married in 1782 Thomas Entwisle, younger than herself and devoted to her five-year-old daughter. Thomas was a violinist, working with the Thomas Bibby Players in which his wife was wardrobe mistress. The company was based at Ulverstone in the Lake District where Harriot made her first stage appearance, not yet quite ten years old, on 16 October 1787 in Little Pickle or The Spoiled Child. This play became a favourite at Drury Lane, where in March 1790 Dora Jordan played the role of the Spoiled Child to full houses. The play is a farce, but with no sexual overtones, and was much enjoyed by the Duke of Clarence, who began paying his attentions to Mrs Jordan a few months later.

Harriot went to Miss Calvert's day school and made stage appearances in at least eleven Midland towns. In Burton-on-Trent she met a prosperous business family who introduced her to John Wright, a Stafford banker. He, with his connection with the London bank of Wright & Co was to become an important figure in Harriot's career.

She and her family moved to Stafford in 1789 where she joined a better theatrical company, Stanton's, earning a guinea a week. The Wright family were extremely kind to Harriot, the daughters lending her their dresses and jewels. Their friendship was the more important to Harriot as her mother consistently maltreated her, flying into rages, beating her and locking her in a dark room. On one occasion Harriot ran away, missing a performance, but returned penitently the next day to her employers, the Stantons, who received her sympathetically, condemning her mother's cruelty.

John Wright introduced Harriot to Richard Sheridan, who had been Member of Parliament for Stafford since 1780. The cost of his first election was around £2,000, some of the money being raised by his offering a share in the profits of the Drury Lane theatre, of which he owned half the management. Contact between the playwright and the banker may well have come about through the need to raise the election expenses. Sheridan was taken with John Wright's protégée, but when Wright asked him to invite her to join his Drury Lane Theatre Company, he was evasive, writing to say that he would think about it.

Despite this lack of encouragement, in 1794, aged 17, Harriot took the £50 from her benefit performance and set off for London with her parents. They rented rooms in New Street, near Surrey Zoo Gardens, three miles from Drury Lane, but after three months moved to 17 Little Russell Street to be nearer the theatre where Harriot hoped to be employed. Sheridan at rst pretended he had never heard of her, but her mother, unabashed, produced his letter to Mr Wright, whereupon she was told that since the season was nearly over her daughter would have to wait until the following year. Harriot's rst appearance at Drury Lane was some date between January 1795 and June 1796, but certainly at the end of the 1796 Drury Lane season Harriot went to the Liverpool Theatre where she appeared in many productions.

Mrs Siddons also finished the 1796 season in Liverpool, where she befriended Harriot, of whose propriety of behaviour she greatly approved. On their return to London Mrs Siddons invited her to the Drury Lane green room, usually reserved for stars. Harriot clearly understood the importance of preserving her respectability. Had Sheridan himself not said of acting, 'for a girl (is) the unblushing object of a licentious gaping crowd ... What is the modesty of any woman whose trade it is eternally to represent all the different modifications of love before a mixed assembly of rakes, whores, lords and blackguards, and ... to be haul'd about, squeez'd and kiss'd by beastly pimping actors. What is to be the fate of a girl of seventeen in such a situation?'

The good sense of combining respectability with a career on the stage must have been even more obvious to Harriot when she became a favourite of Mrs Jordan, who used her as one of her understudies during the brief periods when the birth of another of the King's many love-children made her leave the stage. The vitriolic nature of the criticism and cartoons aimed at Mrs Jordan must have strengthened Harriot's resolve to conform to the conventions, such as they were, of the times. Though not regarded as so good an actress as Mrs Jordan, Harriot was a great favourite with the public, being described as 'a handsome brunette, inclined to portliness, but with great vivacity.' She was also considered as 'generous, ostentatious and somewhat fiery in temperament.'

In 1798 Sheridan introduced Harriot to Mr Graham, a Bow Street magistrate, who took her to visit his cousin Sir Henry Tempest who was building a new house, Holly Lodge, at Highgate. Harriot loved its countrified freshness and was a frequent visitor. The Graham's orphaned niece, Eleanor Goddard, became a great friend to Harriot and eventually her companion for nineteen years, 1812 to 1831.

A budding romance with a Mr Barry, recently returned from the West Indies, ended in 1804 when Harriot found he was lying about his wealth. Mrs Entwisle had made every effort to thwart Mr Barry and relations with her daughter had become even more strained. Next year the Entwisles left London and opened a music shop in Cheltenham. In spite of the disagreement, Harriot bought them a house there, while she remained in Little Russell Street with a female companion. Harriot made a great pet of her, buying her dresses exactly like her own, so that they were frequently taken for sisters. Together they visited the Entwisles for the 1805 Cheltenham season, where Harriot was booked to appear at the theatre. There she met an equerry to the Prince of Wales, whom she persuaded to obtain for her step-father the office of Post Master of Cheltenham. Harriot's mother, hearing that Thomas Coutts, the London banker, was in Cheltenham, wrote to him asking him to take a box for her daughter's benefit night, a presumption to which he did not reply. However when he met Harriot whom he had often 'admired' at Drury Lane taking the air with her friend in the Long Walk he apologised for not having answered, and sent five golden guineas to her benefit fund, which she always kept for good luck.

Whilst acting at Drury Lane Harriot accumulated a comfortable bank balance with Wright & Co, in Covent Garden, connections of her Stafford banker friend. Thomas Coutts frequently visited the Drury Lane green room, though no doubt not expecting to fid the prudence in business, so admired by a Scot, in a handsome young actress. He no doubt recalled that when he had met Harriot out walking in Cheltenham she had been prudently accompanied by a companion. He was soon giving her fatherly advice on the management of her finances. He counselled her to make over her fortune to trustees and, if she married, to secure it to herself by contract. From November 1805 he gave her an allowance and encouraged her to continue banking at Wrights, rather than with his own bank, perhaps wishing to conceal the allowance from his partners. He also took an interest in her personal affairs, trying to prevent her from being exploited by her mother, for Mrs Entwisle was constantly demanding money from her daughter. When Mr Entwisle was about to lose his position in the Cheltenham Post Office for lying about the arrival of an important letter, Thomas Coutts intervened to save him, though making it clear that he would not help again.

By 1807 the banker had become infatuated with Harriot. He called often in Little Russell Street though always extremely scrupulous about the respectability of his visits. Thomas let it be supposed that Harriot was his natural daughter, a perfectly acceptable supposition at that date. Nevertheless, when Harriot appeared on the stage wearing a paste necklace she was accused of flaunting diamonds given to her by her protector. She was so angry at this that she gave the necklace away. By 1808 Harriot's careful management of her money enabled her to fulfill her ambition to buy Holly Lodge, the house at Highgate that she had loved since visiting the Tempests there when she first came to London.

(Continues...)

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