The backdrop of my next book in The Lyon’s Den Connected World has to do with the Bank of London and the threat of forged and uttered faked bank notes. In Book 2, Lyon’s Obsession, Alexander Dutton, Lord Marksman’s and Lady Theodora Duncan’s tale, we are introduced to the idea of the crime, but the bank notes are not the center of the story. In Book 3, Lyon in Disguise, it is Lord Navan Beaufort’s assignment to stop the forgeries flooding London’s street, while keeping Lady Annalise Dutton’s safe. The reader hears more of the how easily it was to forge bank notes and how many in the England and elsewhere chose it to be their life style – cheating honest people out of their hard earned money.

Some Good Sources:

Banking in Eighteenth Century England

http://www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/money/banking.html

British Banking History

http://www.banking-history.co.uk/history.html

Regency England and Money

http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency/money.htm

In any city, there are also always pawn shops, and most folks would keep a strong box with some level of cash funds on hand–any country estate would need this in order to pay wages to servants and to workers. Houses in London would also require cash on hand to pay wages. The term “banknote” is used in numismatic and banking circles. Most of us just call them bills (dollar, etc.). Banknotes are promissory notes drawn on a bank’s funds. U.S. banknotes are drawn on the Federal Reserve Bank, and no other bank in the country is authorized to issue them. Similar in other countries.

Strictly speaking, they are promissory notes (or cheques/checks) issued by specific banks in a specified value. They are called Bank Cheques today, which are a different beast to cheques written by a bank’s customers.

The Bank Notes of old are the equivalent of today’s Bank Cheques/Checks – a check issued by a specific bank against its own holdings (they withdraw the funds from their customer’s account and hold it in their own reserves), and the bank holds that money until the the Bank Cheque/check is presented for payment.

A relatively new book called In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars 1793 – 1815 contains a lot of information on banks of which I was. It concerns the impact of the Wars on life in England and follows certain families, some involved in banking, for the duration. Can’t remember the author, sorry (my books are packed up for 3 months and it is driving me nuts). But I do remember my surprise at the number of local banks and the amount of commerce. The author mention’s Hoare’s bank. There are several references to banking and banks.– city banking and country banking. The Bank of England. ”

Several private banks dotted down Fleet Street and the Strand to Charing Cross, a busy corridor between the city and Westminster and the West End, all dealing with wealthy landed customers in need of mortgages and loans, or, if they were flush, a safe house for their deposits. Each bank had its distinctive clientele: Praed & Co in Fleet Street had the West Country and Cornish business; Drummond’s catered for army agents, Gosling’s and Child’s for East India company tycoons; Coutts dealt with the aristocracy and never with industry; Wright’s in Covent Garden looked after the Catholic gentry and Herries Bank in St. James Street, further west, issued cheques for smart travellers setting out on the grand tour.The rule at Hoare’s was that one partner was in attendance at all times. Ten clerks. One must be in at all times even on Sundays and Christmas day. They could live there.

Baring’s was a merchant banker even if the word was not used at that time.

The Quakers had several banks Lloyd’s in Birmingham, Backhouse in Darlington, and Gurney’s in Norwich.

I have read that Child & Co. was one of the London banks that catered to aristocrats, so many authors use that as my hero’s London bank. Just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t totally off to think that local banks, ones close to an aristocrat’s estate, would take deposits from an estate manager, then forward funds on to London, for an aristocrat’s town expenses. From your description of Austen Knight’s finances, it doesn’t sound as if this assumption isn’t wrong, at least for some land owners. Lady Jersey owned a good portion of the Child bank. It like Goslings is now part of Barclay’s. Some banks were purely commercial. Others did have personal accounts, they catered to anyone with substantial money.

In Jane Austen, Edward Knight, & Chawton : Commerce and Community by Linda Slothouber she says that Edward Austen Knight’s primary London bank was Goslings Bank. He also used a bank founded by his brother Henry. Austen, Maunde & Austen which went bankrupt and made Edeard suffer a substantial loss.

Goslings bank had records of money deposited in country banks. One such was Hammond & Co, in Canterbury. That bank consistently sent large deposits to the Gosling bank. I imagine these deposits would travel with guards,

Agents also regularly made deposits in the Gosling bank. They were close enough to London to do so. 

Sparrow & Co., an Essex bank also made deposits into the Gosling account. Money for current expenses and for current wages were kept on hand so not all money was sent to the bank. They were not quite in the habit of writing checks. Coin was preferred to paper and most servants and such were paid in coin. Though this book is about the finances of Edward Austen Knight, it is the only one so far that I have found that actually discusses the bank deposits. Others discus the debts, the expenses, loans made by the landowner to others or taken out from a bank.

The eighteenth century was the beginning of modern day banking in England. It was an exciting era in the economic realm, as it led to the emergence of modern financial institutions. International trade, as well as war with France, played a key role in the development of banks and a banking system. During this time, many significant events took place, including the advent of the check and banknote, the founding of the Bank of England, and the first instances in British history of inflation and forgery.

Many of the services provided by banks were merely a continuance of those offered previously by merchants, brokers and goldsmiths of the city. Indeed, it was the goldsmith houses of the late seventeenth century that became the banks of the 1700’s. The goldsmiths were well-to-do men with secure lodgings. The future bankers were not simply keepers and dealers of coin. They were men whose promises to pay were widely accepted as legal money. They were men of character and integrity. They issued endorsed receipts, which one could return to collect his money.

Anyone kept money with them might write a letter giving instructions to transfer a certain amount of money into another persons account. Thus, the concept of checks was born.⁵⁶ Indeed, the coin shortage resulted in unregulated private bank notes supplying the need for money in circulation. The birth of banks can be, in part, attributed to British imperialism. The new avenues of international trade and commerce necessitated financial institutions to provide and move capital.

Banks arose according to the various need of the people. By the end of the eighteenth century, three main types of banks were in operation:

• West end banks: Hoares, Coutts, Childs and Drummonds were mainly involved in business with the aristocracy, gentry, government (securities) and wealthy lawyers.
• East End banks: Martins, Curries, Glyn Mills, Mastermans made loans to the members of the stock exchange, did business with traders and manufacturers, and acted as liaisons for country banks.
• Country banks started springing up in the latter half of the eighteenth century. There were less than a dozen before 1750. Their arrival was due mainly due to the recoinage of guineas in 1774, which created a special need for banks to collect coins and provide alternative currency.

Lyon in Disguise: Lyon’s Den Connected World 

A handsome rake meets his match in a red-headed enchantress who is his enemy!

They may be on different sides of the law, but Lord Navan Beaufort is not going to permit that to stop him from protecting Miss Audrey Moreau. Navan has never thought truly to love anyone, but when he laid eyes on the red-headed beauty, his world shifted. Unfortunately, the lady appears to prefer Lord Alexander Dutton to him, though Navan has rarely had the opportunity to speak to her privately. That is, until he saves her from a fire one miraculous night. From there forward, she is his hope. His future.

Miss Audrey Moreau depends exclusively on her Uncle Jacobi for a home and protection. The man rescued her from a bayman’s plantation in the West Indies when she was five; yet, she well knows the “Marquis of Honfleur’s” schemes. She thought once Jacobi was caught, all would be well, but even from his jail, the man means to rain down harm upon her.

Can two lost souls find happiness together, when everyone in whom they had previously placed their trust have left them alone in the world?

Tropes You’ll Love:

• Enemies to lovers
• Self-declared bachelor
• Friends to lovers
• Adversaries
• Damsel in distress
• Best friend’s sister
• Different worlds/experiences
• Soul mates
• Emotional scars
• Fish out of water

Read in Kindle Unlimited!

Enjoy book one in a new series within The Lyon’s Den Connected world by Regina Jeffers.

Book 1 – Lyon in the Way

Book 2 – Lyon’s Obsession

Book 3 – Lyon in Disguise

Book 4 – Lost in the Lyon’s Garden

Book 5 – Lyon on the Inside

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G1V963YZ

Please Note: The price of this book will increase to $3.99 on 11/26/2025.