Before 1765 Birmingham had no real bank. William Hutton, writing in 1783, remembered that “about every tenth trader was a banker, or, a retailer of cash”, led by “the whole train of drapers and grocers”. A manufacturer who needed to borrow, or to send money to London, had to make his own arrangements.
Dale End, 1765
On 3 June 1765 four men opened a bank in Dale End: Sampson Lloyd, a Quaker iron merchant, his son Sampson, the button and japanned-ware manufacturer John Taylor, and Taylor’s son John. Hutton called them “two opulent tradesmen, whose credit being equal to that of the bank of England, quickly collected the shining rays of sterling property into its focus”.
The partnership combined two kinds of capital. Taylor was one of the richest manufacturers in the town. The Lloyds belonged to a close network of Quaker families with a name for plain, honest dealing. The Library of Birmingham’s archivists record that within ten years the bank had 277 customers, and that its notes, still written out by hand, were accepted across Birmingham and stayed in circulation for a hundred years.
Lending to the makers
The bank arrived just as Birmingham’s great expansion began. The Victoria County History notes that before 1765 money could be borrowed only informally; after that date, it was available “at Taylor and Lloyds’ Bank”. It was the first of many. There were six banks in the town by 1815.
From Taylors to Lloyds
The Taylor family stayed in the bank for nearly ninety years. After the last Taylor partner died in 1853, according to the Library of Birmingham, the Lloyds carried on alone as Lloyds & Co. In 1865 it became a joint-stock company, Lloyds Banking Company, after merging with J. L. Moilliet & Sons. For its first ninety-nine years, Lloyds says, the business traded from a single Birmingham office.
The black horse came later, in 1884, with the London bank of Barnetts, Hoares & Co. A City of Birmingham blue plaque in Dale End marks the “Site of the Banking business of Taylors & Lloyds predecessors of Lloyds Bank Limited commenced 3rd June 1765”.
On the map
3 places connected with Taylors & Lloyds. Tap a number for directions — some sites are private homes or gardens, so each place’s page says what you can see from the street.
- Bordesley Hall — Lost
- Taylors & Lloyds bank, Dale End (site) — Lost, Site redeveloped · Directions to Taylors & Lloyds bank, Dale End (site) (opens Google Maps)
- Farm (Lloyd’s Farmhouse), Sparkbrook — Surviving, Surviving but altered · Directions to Farm (Lloyd’s Farmhouse), Sparkbrook (opens Google Maps)
Key dates
- 3 June 1765 — Taylors & Lloyds bank opens in Dale EndJohn Taylor, Sampson Lloyd and their sons open Birmingham’s first proper bank in Dale End. It later became Lloyds Bank. A blue plaque marks the site.
- 1775 — Death of John TaylorJohn Taylor, Birmingham’s great button and japanned-ware maker and co-founder of Taylors & Lloyds, dies leaving property worth about £200,000.
Sources and further reading
- An History of Birmingham (2nd edition) — William Hutton, Pearson and Rollason, Birmingham (Project Gutenberg text), 1783. ‘Bank’
- From local beginnings… — Library of Birmingham, Archives & Collections (The Iron Room blog), 2015
- The history of Lloyds Bank — Lloyds Banking Group
- Economic and Social History: Industry and Trade, 1500–1880, in A History of the County of Warwick, vol. 7, pp. 81–139 — W. B. Stephens (ed.), Victoria County History, 1964. ‘Entrepreneurs and Capital’; ‘The Financing of Industry’
- Taylors & Lloyds blue plaque, Dale End — Open Plaques
