Glyn, Mills & Co.

Glyn, Mills & Company was private bank founded in London in 1753, which existed until 1969, when it became part of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The bank was founded under the name Vere, Glyn & Hallifax. Joseph Vere was an experienced banker who was a member of the Goldsmiths Company and had been involved with earlier banking partnerships; Richard Glyn had been a prominent London drysalter with widespread merchanting connections; and Thomas Hallifax was the son of a Barnsley clockmaker who had become chief clerk at Martins Bank. Unlike many of the private London banks that relied on wealthy and titled customers, Glyn, Mills was originally a commercial institution; railway companies, the Sun Insurance and the Hudson's Bay Company were leading customers.

Vere died in 1766 leaving Glyn and Hallifax as partners; they traded satisfactorily until the financial panic of 1772 when the Bank had to stop payment for some weeks and narrowly avoided bankruptcy. One of those who provided temporary finance for the Bank was Sir John Salter, one-time Lord Mayor of London, but only on condition that his son-in-law, William Mills, could enter the partnership. When the Bank reopened it did so as Glyn, Hallifax and Mills. It was still of modest size: the number of staff was no more than seven in 1790, but over the next 40 years it rose to 51. The last Hallifax family member in the Bank died in 1850 and the bank became Glyn, Mills & Co.

Conscious of the need to enlarge its financial resources, in 1864 the Bank acquired another London private bank, Currie's, and the firm became known as Glyn, Mills, Currie & Co - a name that was maintained until 1923. The ownership of the Bank was determined by family group and not individuals: the Glyn and Mills families were entitled to two-fifths each and the Currie family, one-fifth. Two years later, in 1866, a group of Scottish banks agreed to purchase half the capital of Glyn Mills in order to obtain a seat in the London Clearing House, but the collapse of Overend Gurney prevented the implementation of the deal.

...
Wikipedia