By Roger Outing.

London & Northern Bank

Illustrated at Fig. 1 is a cheque of The London & Northern Bank Ltd from the Scarborough Branch and dated 1899.  You will look in vain for this bank in the banking almanacs.  It was established in 1898 and then closed down in 1899 – only 12 twelve months of business activity.  Details of the branches are limited but Leeds and London are known.  This cheque now confirms that the Bank had a branch at Scarborough.  The illustrated example is the first reported example from Scarborough.

There is no record of any bankruptcy so it is assumed that this banking enterprise just quietly ceased trading.

This is a rare cheque from one of the most difficult of the joint stock banking titles to acquire.  This cheque will be offered for sale on our next Cheque List in February 2005.

Cheese Please

Fig. 2 shows a cheque of Cheese, Davies & Crummer a private Bank at Kington, established in 1789 and also known as the Kington & Radnorshire Bank.  This private bank ended up being incorporated within the Midland Bank Ltd via the Metropolitan Bank (of England & Wales) Ltd.

The cheque shown is dated 1810 and is a good example of a classic black on white early cheque with minimal design or security features.  Observe that the signature is that of “John Cheese” – the same name as the senior partner.  Are they connected?  Is it the same person?

A little research quickly establishes that John Cheese was actually the brother of Edmund Cheese who was the senior partner at the time this cheque was used.  John Cheese became a partner in the Bank in 1812 and he is presumably included in the title of slightly later cheques.

Banking families often kept their own personal accounts in their own private banks.  Where else?  It is always worth reading a cheque carefully see if you come across a family link such as this.  An actual autograph of a private banker is always interesting to have in a collection and reminds us that cheques are often very personal items.  Another item that will appear in our Cheque List sales in February 2005.

Different Values

Cheques have their value entered twice – once in letters and once in numbers.  What happens if these two values are not the same?  Strictly speaking, according to banking regulations, it is the words that should take precedence and that amount should be paid.  Bankers do not, apparently, always do this.

Fig 3 shown a National Provincial cheque drawn in 1887 on the Hay branch.  The value in words reads “”Fifty Three pounds 17.7.” whilst the value in numbers is clearly “£53:17.3”.  The two values differ by 4d.  What to do?

The Cashier has entered “paid as 53:17:3” in the bottom margin and has paid out the lesser amount of the two shown on the cheque.  This practise of paying out the lesser amount and endorsing the cheque accordingly is actually what most bankers appear to do.  No doubt a serious discrepancy for a large amount would be returned to the drawer for the cheque to be re-done.

Once again it is worthwhile carefully reading cheques to identify anomalies such as this.

Decimalisation

On 1^st February 1971 decimal currency was introduced in the U.K.  From that date the ‘old money’ of  £. s. d. was no longer used.  What about cheques that would take at least 3 days to pass through the banking system?  You could write a cheque in ‘old money’ in the last days of January but it would not be cashed until the first days of February when ‘new money’ was in use.  What happened?

Fig 4 shows a Midland Bank cheque which was drawn on 27^th January 1971 for “£50-17-11d” (old money).  It was not paid until 26^th February when the new decimal currency was in use.  This cheque has been converted by the bank into new money with “£50-90” being entered in red.  This is confirmed in the bottom margin with the value “00000005090” being repeated in optically read numbers.  This conversion procedure must have been applied to millions of cheques cashed at this period.  It must have been quite a task for the Banks to manually convert all the values.  Perhaps that is why this cheque took almost one month to be cashed?

This is the first report of this procedure being found on a cheque.  There must surely be other surviving examples?  Any reports are welcome.  (Thanks to B.T. for supplying this example).

Half Penny Cheques?

Half penny values should not be used on cheques.  If they are used then the extra half pence will be ignored.  Not many people know this so from time to time “half penny cheques” do appear. 

Fig 5 shows a Midland Bank cheque of 1937 on Ellesmere Port Branch which is made out for “£1-8-5½d”.  It is stamped as paid on 14^th May but the Bank has ignored that extra half pence as indicated by the fact that the halfpenny has been crossed through.

These ‘half penny cheques’ are not often encountered and it always nice to have an example.  We found this example lying unrecognised in a dealers “cheap and cheerful” box and were happy to give it a permanent home.

Nothing New? 

A cry we sometimes hear from established cheque collectors is that they is “nothing new” on the market.  All the above items have been purchased in the past 3 or 4 months.   They are not all to everyone’s collecting taste but they are all new finds of one kind or another.  We take the view that with a little background knowledge and the patience to apply that knowledge whilst searching through material then ‘new finds’ are a regular occurrence.  I all seems to depend on how you look!

Back To Top