From the archives: Delve into the bank’s history

This is a letter written by William Backhouse from New York in 1775. The Backhouse family founded a bank in Darlington which went on to become part of Barclays. Like many of our early founders, the Backhouses were Quakers, and had links with Quakers who’d settled in America. The letter is written during the time of the American War of Independence and makes reference to the Boston Tea Party. Backhouse describes the anguish he feels in seeing fellow Quakers taking up arms. What makes this letter special is knowing that it was written by someone witnessing one of the most important events in world history – reading Backhouse’s very personal reflections on these tumultuous events makes them really come to life.

This is a recruitment advert from 1967, and I love that it is so completely 1960s. Bank advertising really took off in the 1960s – up until then, banking had been terribly restrained and the banks wouldn’t have dreamt of competing openly for customers or staff. However, the 1960s was a time of huge social change – women were actively recruited for the first time, and although this advert may seem rather patronising to modern eyes, at the time it represented a big step forward for the banking world.

Our original 1966 Barclaycard always makes me smile. It is a small piece of plastic, but it represents a huge development in our history. Not only was it the UK’s first credit card, it was conceived and launched in just six months, and ushered in a whole new approach to advertising and branding. It symbolises Barclays’ pioneering can-do attitude like nothing else in our collection.

Barclays traces its history back to two goldsmith bankers, Freame and Gould, who set up their business in 1690. In 1736, Freame’s son-in-law James Barclay joined the partnership – the first Barclay in the bank. This is the last page from their annual balance, which comprised a list of all their customers, followed by a calculation of their profits, which was signed by both partners. This record reminds me that the Barclay name does not just belong to a huge corporation, it belongs to a human being.

I also love the fact that this document is clearly a predecessor of our modern annual report, and that is a theme you can find throughout our records – while technology has obviously changed the way in which we do business, many of our basic processes remain the same, and echoes of our past can be found everywhere.

These are the customer ledgers for the bank of Goslings and Sharpe of Fleet Street, which became part of Barclays in 1896. There are 658 ledgers in total, and each one is slightly different because their bindings are hand-stitched. Although we do not collect modern customer records, we have decided to preserve these because it is incredibly rare to find such a complete set of customer ledgers, and we can learn so much from them about the early days, and the development of banking.

We can also learn a huge amount about the people whose accounts are contained within the ledgers, and they have been used to great effect by a variety of researchers. The National Trust, for example, has used the account of the Earl of Bristol to track payments relating to his house, which they now own. By tracking payments they have been able to accurately date work on the gardens, and the painting of a portrait.

Barclay and Company Limited was formed in 1896 through an amalgamation of 20 small private banks. One of the first things the new company did was commission a survey of all the premises it had inherited from its constituents. The surveys were recorded in five leather-bound, gold-tooled volumes, and each survey comprised a very detailed description of the premises, together with a simple floor plan. Some 168 buildings were covered in total, and the surveyors considered the state of repair of the premises, and their potential. These volumes provide a beautiful snapshot of a bank as it moved from old family traditions to modern organisational procedures, demonstrating how buildings reflect, respond to and influence working practices, social status and corporate ambition.