Williams Deacon's Bank

Williams Deacon's Bank is now part of the Royal Bank of Scotland. It was acquired in 1930, and had a large network of branches in the north-west of England. In 1970 it was integrated with Glyn, Mills & Co. and The National Bank (which were part of the same group) to form Williams & Glyn's Bank.

Familiarity with the Williams Deacon's name conceals the reality that the dominant institution was the Manchester & Salford Bank. When Manchester & Salford acquired William Deacon's in 1890 it changed its name to the cumbersome Williams Deacon & Manchester & Salford Bank only to shorten it to Williams Deacon's Bank in 1901. The bank was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1931.

The Manchester and Salford Banking Company was founded in 1836. Forty years later, Grindon wrote that of the older Manchester joint stock banks, "this one stands alone in never having brought on itself any serious misfortune ... and never slackened in steady and prosperous advance." Once the company was formed, the bank appointed Williams Deacon as its London agents, thus starting the relationship which was to result in the latter's acquisition.

Despite the Salford in its title, the bank confined itself to its sole Manchester office until 1862. Salford then became the first branch, followed by Southport and other south Lancashire towns. In 1874, the bank acquired the business of Heywood Brothers. Benjamin Heywood had left the Liverpool Heywood banking firm in 1778 to open a Manchester bank trading as Benjamin Heywood, Sons, later Heywood Brothers, and the family was one of the best known in the two cities. Local banks in Bolton and Rochdale were acquired soon after the Heywood purchase.

The pace of expansion increased rapidly after 1887. In that year the number of branches was no more than 20 but in the following two years another 26 were added. Even this was eclipsed in 1890 when the bank acquired the London firm of Williams Deacon. The registered office was moved to Williams Deacon's Birchin Lane office to ensure that the seat on the London Clearing House was protected, but the bank's head office remained in Manchester.

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Wikipedia