Child & Co. is a private banking house in the United Kingdom, component of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. It is based at 1Fleet Street in the City of London.

Just another Journalhome blog

Posted in Unspecified

Child & Co. is a private banking house in the United Kingdom, component of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. It is based at 1Fleet Street in the City of London.
Child & Co. is 1 of the oldest financial institutions in the UK, and can trace its roots back to a London goldsmith organization in the late 17th century. The name Child comes from Francis Child, who entered into partnership with Robert Blanchard in 1664. Child married Blanchard's stepdaughter and inherited the whole business on Blanchard's death. Renamed Child and Co, the company thrived, and was appointed the "jeweller in ordinary" to King William III.
Following Child died in 1713, his 3 sons ran the business, and in the course of this time, the company transformed from a goldsmith's to a fully fledged bank. Its very first bank note was issued in 1729.
Helen Child-Helen Child-Helen Child-Helen Child

By 1782, Child's grandson Robert Child was the senior partner in the firm. Even so, when he died in 1782 without any sons to inherit the enterprise, he did not want to leave it to his only daughter, Sarah Anne Child, simply because he was furious over her elopement with John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland earlier in the year. To stop the Earls of Westmorland from ever acquiring his wealth, he left it in trust to his daughter's second surviving son or eldest daughter. This turned out to be Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, who was born in 1785.

She married George Child-Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey in 1804, and upon her majority in 1806 she became senior partner. She exercised her rights personally until her death in 1867. At that point the Earl of Jersey & Frederick William Price of Harringay Residence had been appointed as the two leading partners. Ownership continued in the Jersey household until the 1920s.
In 1923, George, 8th Earl of Jersey sold the bank to Glyn, Mills & Co., a London-based commercial bank. Williams Deacon's Bank acquired Glyn's in 1939 (both subsequently taken over by the Royal Bank of Scotland and recognized asWilliams & Glyn's Bank from 1970 to 1985), retaining Child & Co. as a separate enterprise, as which it continues to this day at No. 1, Fleet Street.

Intriguing Facts:
Over their 350-year history Child & Co has attracted an exclusive client base such as The Honourable Societies of Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, and numerous landowning families. Scholars of the Inns receive their awards by cheques drawn on Child & Co, and numerous Barristers continue to use the bank throughout their expert lives. Many universities including The London School of Economics, Oxford University, and Imperial College London are reported to hold accounts.
Child & Co. is authorised with the Financial Services Authority for the purposes of the Monetary Services Compensation Scheme as a brand of the Royal Bank of Scotland. When the 311 Royal Bank of Scotland branches in England and Wales are sold to Grupo Santander in 2012, Drummonds Bank and Child & Co. will remain part of RBS.
Lady Sarah Sophia can surely be regarded as one of the initial female bankers " a true pioneer of her era. One hundred and fifty years later her story has a remarkable similarity with one more member of the Child family producing her mark on the finance sector. Helen Child, Chief Executive of G-T-P, is also a leading female in her business being voted one of the Best Ten Ladies by the Readers of Paybefore. The pioneering spirit lives on as G-T-P was the initial Monetary Institution in the UK to be awarded each a Visa & MasterCard Prepaid Issuing License.
Interestingly though Helen Child didn’t elope with the Earl of Westmorland, she has nevertheless lived in the Lake District (formerly Westmorland) considering that she was a child…….

Share |