What was here?
The office of the bank opened by John Taylor, Sampson Lloyd and their sons in 1765, listed in 1770 as “The Bank, 7 Dale End”. It traded here until 1845. The street has since been rebuilt.
History
The first bank
The partners took premises in Dale End and began business in 1764, before formally opening on 3 June 1765. The office stood at the corner of a passage later known as Bank Passage. In Birmingham’s first directory, of 1770, it is listed simply as “The Bank, 7 Dale End”, the only bank in the book.
It was a family affair. John Taylor and Sampson Lloyd put up the money with their sons, but the Lloyds did most of the work, and Sampson Lloyd III was the chief acting partner. The bank’s handwritten notes were trusted across the town, and within ten years it had 277 customers.
Moving on
The business stayed in Dale End until 1845. It became Lloyds & Co. after the last Taylor partner died in 1853, and the Lloyds Banking Company in 1865. 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”.
What happened here?
Birmingham’s first lasting bank opened here in 1765 and lent to the town’s manufacturers for eighty years from this one office.
Why it mattered
Cheap, trusted credit let Birmingham’s small makers buy metal and pay wages before their customers paid them. The bank that began here grew into Lloyds.
Why it disappeared
Redevelopment · Commercial redevelopment
The bank moved in 1845, and Dale End was later rebuilt; the old buildings and Bank Passage have gone.
The same spot, then and now
1888–1913
Today
Old map: Ordnance Survey six-inch, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC BY 4.0). Today: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
What’s there now
What replaced it
Later commercial buildings in Dale End.
What survives
Only the blue plaque.
Today
Dale End, between Albert Street and Carrs Lane, a city-centre street of shops and offices.
Sources and further reading
The plaque and the 1770 directory place the bank in Dale End, but the 1770 number 7 has not been matched to a modern plot. Samuel Lloyd (1907) says the business stayed here until 1845; Lloyds says it traded from a single office for its first 99 years, which suggests a single office at a time rather than one building throughout.
- Taylors & Lloyds blue plaque, Dale End — Open Plaques
- The Lloyds of Birmingham, with some account of the founding of Lloyds Bank — Samuel Lloyd, Cornish Brothers, Birmingham, 1907. pp. 53–56
- From local beginnings… — Library of Birmingham, Archives & Collections (The Iron Room blog), 2015
- The history of Lloyds Bank — Lloyds Banking Group
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