source: Lloyd’s Banking group
The firm of Taylors & Lloyds opened as a private bank in Birmingham, in June 1765. It was founded by John Taylor, Sampson Lloyd and their two sons. Taylor was a Unitarian and a cabinet maker, Lloyd a Quaker and iron founder. The bank they established was one of the first in Birmingham. It was essentially a town bank, with a strong manufacturing and mercantile customer base.
Under the prudent eyes of successive partners, the business prospered for nearly 100 years from a single office. During this period, Birmingham became the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution, and was known as the ‘workshop of the world’. Taylors & Lloyds played a prominent role in financing trade and industry in the town. The bank was particularly active in the manufacturing and engineering sectors.
extract from Lloyds TSB History
Sampson Lloyd II worked for 40 years in the family iron trade in Birmingham before founding Taylors and Lloyds in partnership with John Taylor in 1765. Taylor was a wealthy Unitarian who was a maker of buttons and snuff boxes; Lloyd was a prominent Quaker whose father had settled in Birmingham in 1698. Each man’s eldest son was also a partner in the bank, and two of Lloyd’s other sons eventually joined it as well.
Taylors and Lloyds opened its accounts in June 1765. Just five years later, the bank’s two junior partners set up their own banking house in London with two other businessmen, forming Hanbury, Taylor, Lloyd and Bowman. This bank then served as the Birmingham house’s agent. In 1775 the Birmingham bank had 277 customers.
Sampson Lloyd II had apprenticed to a Quaker businessman in Bristol before joining his father’s iron firm. He was married twice and had six children. Little is known of his son and partner Sampson III, who was the last Lloyd to be a partner in both the Birmingham and London houses. Sampson III and his wife had 16 children and were known to have entertained James Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson. Sampson’s half-brother Charles was the more important of the two, best known for his intellect and remarkable memory. In the final years of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th, Charles was the principal figure in the Birmingham bank. Charles tried mightily to mold his eldest son, Charles II, into a banker, but his efforts failed. His second son, James, became a partner in the Birmingham bank in 1802 and was followed in the mid-19th century by his own three sons.
Strategic Partnerships in the 19th Century
The Bank of England had a monopoly on joint-stock banking until 1826, when Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, sponsored a new law allowing joint-stock banking, except within a 65-mile radius of London. Seven years later, joint-stock banks were allowed within the 65-mile circle, but in 1844 a stricter law virtually stopped further joint-stock banks from being founded. During those brief lenient years, 120 “joint-stocks” were founded in England and Wales and of these, 20 eventually became part of the Lloyds group. By the time they amalgamated with Lloyds, these 20 banks had a total of approximately 350 offices.
John Taylor died just ten years after founding Taylors and Lloyds. His son John, Jr., was 27 at the time of the bank’s founding and remained a partner in both the Birmingham and London banks until he died in 1814. His oldest son, John, never entered banking and his two other sons, James and William, were the last Taylors involved with the firm. When James died in 1852, his son was offered partnerships in the Birmingham and London houses but turned both down. Thus the Taylor family’s connection to the bank ceased. The Birmingham bank became Lloyds and Company, and the London house became Hanburys and Lloyds. The latter merged with Barnetts, Hoares and Company in 1864 to form Barnetts, Hoares, Hanbury and Lloyds. This transaction brought Barnetts, Hoares’ sign, a black horse, to Lloyds, where it continues to be the bank’s symbol.
Sampson Samuel Lloyd, a great-great-grandson of Sampson Lloyd III, became chairman in 1869. He oversaw Lloyds’ mergers with seven banks, including its two London agents, Bosanquet, Salt and Company and Barnetts, Hoares, Hanbury and Lloyd, both in 1884. After these amalgamations, which gave Lloyds a foothold in London and entrance to the clearinghouse system of clearing checks and settling balances, the bank was known as Lloyds, Barnetts and Bosanquets Bank Limited. Although the bank’s branches were all within a 50-mile radius of Birmingham and the head office remained in that city, its center of activity was rapidly shifting to London. Beginning in 1899, Lloyds’ board would meet alternately in London and Birmingham, but by 1910, the board met only in London and all head office business also was transferred there.
Two years after the two important London mergers, Sampson Lloyd handed over the chairmanship to Thomas Salt, whose family had been in banking for generations. Salt had been a director of the bank since 1866, when the bank at which he was a junior partner, Stafford Old Bank, was sold to Lloyds. Early in Salt’s term, the bank took the title of Lloyds Bank Limited. In Salt’s 12 years as chairman, the bank absorbed 15 banks and grew from 61 offices in 1886 to 257 in 1898.
Also deserving of credit for this growth was Howard Lloyd, who served as general manager from 1871 to 1902. A direct descendant of Sampson Lloyd II, Howard Lloyd held many jobs in the bank, gradually working his way up to secretary and, finally, to general manager. Lloyd successfully oversaw the melding of Lloyds’ two London agents into the Lloyds framework, calling those two amalgamations “the most important forward step of the bank’s history.” At the end of his tenure in 1902, the bank had 267 offices. Lloyd was fond of saying that Lloyds Bank was to be not necessarily the biggest bank, but the best bank. He stands out in the history of Lloyds as a tireless administrator who handled an impressive variety of functions.