March 2nd, 1838
In March 1838, an advertisement appeared for a new joint stock banking company in Glasgow, the Clydesdale Banking Company. It was to be “chiefly a local bank – having few branches – but correspondents everywhere” though it was conceded that a branch in Edinburgh would be necessary.
The Bank duly opened for business in both cities in May 1838. Checkland described the Bank as the creation of “a group of Glasgow businessmen of middling order, liberal radicals…who were active in the government and charities of the city.”
The driving figure behind the formation of the bank was James Lumsden, a stationer by business, a councillor, police commissioner and, later, Lord Provost of Glasgow. Another member of the founding committee, Henry Brock, became the Bank’s first manager. Brock came of a merchant family, was an accountant and one of the founders of the Glasgow Savings Bank.
Despite the declaration in the advertisement, in the year after formation the Bank opened three Glasgow branches as well as its first country branches in Campbeltown and Falkirk; a further seven had been opened by 1844. These were supplemented by the acquisition of the Greenock Union Bank; formed in 1840, it had four branches in the Glasgow hinterland.
