Origins
The origins of Lloyds Bank date from 1765, when button maker John Taylor and Quaker iron producer and dealer Sampson Lloyd set up a private banking business in Dale End, Birmingham. The first branch office opened in Oldbury, some six miles (10 km) west of Birmingham, in 1864.[7]
The association with the Taylor family ended in 1852 and, in 1865, Lloyds & Co. converted into a joint-stock company known as Lloyds Banking Company Ltd. The first report of the company in 1865 stated:"LLOYDS BANKING COMPANY LIMITED – Authorized Capital £2,000,000. FOUNDED ON The Private Banks of Messrs. Lloyds & Co. and Messrs. Moilliet and Sons, with-which have subsequently been amalgamated with the Banks of Messrs. P. H. Williams, Wednesbury, and Messrs.Stevenson, Salt, & Co., Stafford and Lichfield. [They had an office at 20 Lombard St., London] Your Directors have the satisfaction to report that they have concluded an agreement with the well-known and old-established firm of Messrs. Stevenson, Salt & Company for the amalgamation with this Company of their Banking Business at Stafford, Lichfield, Rugeley, and Eccleshall, and that this agreement has had the unanimous approval of the Extraordinary General Meeting held on 31st January last. It will be again submitted to you for final confirmation after the close of the Ordinary General Meeting. TIMOTHY KENRICK, Chairman. BIRMINGHAM, 9th February 1866"Two sons of the original partners followed in their footsteps by joining the established merchant bank Barnett, Hoares & Co. which later became Barnetts, Hoares, Hanbury, and Lloyd— based in Lombard Street, London. Eventually, this became absorbed into the original Lloyds Banking Company, which became Lloyds, Barnetts, and Bosanquets Bank Ltd. in 1884.[8] and, finally, Lloyds Bank Limited in 1889.
Symbols
The symbol adopted by Taylors and Lloyds was the beehive, representing industry and hard work (thrift). In 1822, Taylors and Lloyds sent a letter to other banks to inform them of stolen banknotes, adding that it would engrave a symbol of a beehive to all future notes. Dowler & Sons made brass buttons embellished with beehives for branch messenger uniforms in the 1900s. Uniform buttons featuring a black horse with small beehives engraved around it were manufactured in the 1930s.[9]
The black horse regardant device dates from 1677, when Humphrey Stokes adopted it as a sign for his shop. The reason why Stokes chose this horse is unknown, though it may have been a family crest because the black horse is heraldically posed in 'rampant regardant'.[9] Stokes was a goldsmith and "keeper of the running cashes" (an early term for banker) and the business became part of Barnett, Hoares & Co. When Lloyds took over that bank in 1884, it continued to trade "at the sign of the black horse".[10]
The green of the Lloyds Bank was adopted in the 1920s for added distinctiveness.[9]
Expansion
Through a series of mergers, including Cunliffe, Brooks in 1900, the Wilts. and Dorset Bank in 1914 and, by far the largest, the Capital and Counties Bank in 1918, Lloyds emerged to become one of the "Big Four" clearing banks in the United Kingdom. By 1923, Lloyds Bank had made some 50 takeovers, one of which was the last private firm to issue its own banknotes—Fox, Fowler and Company of Wellington, Somerset. Today, the Bank of England has a monopoly of banknote issue in England and Wales.[12] In 2011, the company founded SGH Martineau LLP.
Eleven banks bought by Lloyds Bank between 1865 and 1923 had been involved in slavery to some degree.[13] One of these, the London and Brazilian Bank, financed coffee plantations in Brazil which operated on slave labour, and mortgages on these plantations were sometimes secured using the monetary value of the enslaved people as collateral.[14]
Lloyds TSB
The bank merged first with the newly demutualised Cheltenham & Gloucester Building Society (C&G), then with the TSB Group in 1995.[25][26] The C&G acquisition gave Lloyds a large stake in the UK mortgage lending market.[27] The TSB merger was structured as a reverse takeover; Lloyds Bank Plc was delisted from the London Stock Exchange and TSB Group plc was renamed Lloyds TSB Group plc on 28 December, with former Lloyds Bank shareholders owning a 70% equity interest in the share capital, effected through a scheme of arrangement. The new bank commenced trading in 1999 after the statutory process of integration was completed.[28] On 28 June, TSB Bank plc transferred engagements to Lloyds Bank Plc which then changed its name to Lloyds TSB Bank plc; at the same time, TSB Bank Scotland plc absorbed Lloyds' three Scottish branches becoming Lloyds TSB Scotland plc.
Divestment and return to Lloyds Bank
After the 2008 rescue of HBOS,[37] Lloyds TSB Group was renamed Lloyds Banking Group.[38] In 2009, following the liquidity crisis, HM Government took a 43.4% stake in Lloyds Banking Group. The European Commission ruled that the group must sell a portion of its business by November 2013, as it categorised the stake purchase as state aid.[39]
On 24 April 2013, it was confirmed that a number of Lloyds TSB branches in England and Wales would be combined with the branches of Cheltenham & Gloucester and the business of Lloyds TSB Scotland to form a new bank operating under the TSB brand and divested by the group.[40] The selected Lloyds TSB branches and those of Cheltenham & Gloucester were transferred to Lloyds TSB Scotland plc, which was renamed TSB Bank plc. The new bank began operating on 9 September 2013 as a separate division within Lloyds Banking Group.
