Barclays History

1690 to 1900

Barclays traces its origins back to 17 November 1690, when John Freame, a Quaker, and Thomas Gould, started trading as goldsmith bankers in Lombard Street, London. The name "Barclays" became associated with the business in 1736, when Freame's son-in-law James Barclay became a partner. In 1728, the bank moved to 54 Lombard Street, identified by the "Sign of the Black Spread Eagle", which in subsequent years would become a core part of the bank's visual identity.

The Barclay family were connected with slavery, both as proponents and opponents. David and Alexander Barclay were engaged in the slave trade in 1756. David Barclay of Youngsbury (1729–1809), on the other hand, was a noted abolitionist, and Verene Shepherd, the Jamaican historian of diaspora studies, singles out the case of how he chose to free his slaves in that colony.^[16]

In 1776, the firm was styled "Barclay, Bevan and Bening" and remained so until 1785, when another partner, John Tritton, who had married a Barclay, was admitted, and the business then became "Barclay, Bevan, Bening and Tritton". In 1896, twelve houses in London and the English provinces, notably Goslings and Sharpe, Backhouse's Bank of Darlington^[18] and Gurney's Bank of Norwich (the latter two of which also had their roots in Quaker families), united to form Barclays and Co., a joint-stock bank, which at its formation held around one quarter of deposits in English private banks.

1900 to 1945

Between 1905 and 1916, Barclays extended its branch network by making acquisitions of small English banks. Further expansion followed in 1918 when Barclays amalgamated with the London, Provincial and South Western Bank, and in 1919, when the British Linen Bank was acquired by Barclays, although the British Linen Bank retained a separate board of directors and continued to issue its own banknotes (see Banknotes of the pound sterling).

In 1925, the Colonial Bank, National Bank of South Africa and the Anglo-Egyptian Bank were amalgamated and Barclays operated its overseas operations under the name Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial and Overseas)—Barclays DCO. In 1938, Barclays acquired the first Indian exchange bank, the Central Exchange Bank of India, which had opened in London in 1936 with the sponsorship of Central Bank of India.

In 1941, during the German occupation of France, a branch of Barclays in Paris, headed by Marcel Cheradame, worked directly with the invading force. Senior officials at the bank volunteered the names of Jewish employees, as well as ceding an estimated one hundred Jewish bank accounts to the German occupiers. The Paris branch used its funds to increase the operational power of a large quarry that helped produce steel for the Germans. There was no evidence of contact between the head office in London and the branch in Paris during the occupation. Marcel Cheradame was kept as the branch manager until he retired in the sixties.

1946 to 1980

In May 1958, Barclays was the first UK bank to appoint a female bank manager. Hilda Harding managed Barclays' Hanover Square branch in London until her retirement in 1970.

In 1965, Barclays established a US affiliate, Barclays Bank of California, in San Francisco.^[26][27]

Barclays launched the first credit card in the UK, Barclaycard, in 1966. On 27 June 1967, Barclays deployed the world's first cash machine, in Enfield; Barclays Bank, Enfield.^[28][29] The British actor Reg Varney was the first person to use the machine.

In 1969, a planned merger with Martins Bank and Lloyds Bank was blocked by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, but the acquisition of Martins Bank on its own was later permitted. Also that year, the British Linen Bank subsidiary was sold to the Bank of Scotland in exchange for a 25% stake, a transaction that became effective from 1971. Barclays DCO changed its name to Barclays Bank International in 1971.

From 1972 until 1980, a minority stake in Banca Barclays Castellini SpA, Milan was owned by the Castellini family. In 1980, Barclays Bank International acquired the remaining stake in Barclays Castellini from the Castellini family.

In August 1975, following the secondary banking crash, Barclays acquired Mercantile Credit Company.

1980 to 2000s

Barclays Bank International expanded its business in 1980 to include commercial credit and took over American Credit Corporation, renaming it Barclays American Corporation.^[33]

During 1985 Barclays Bank and Barclays Bank International merged, and as part of the corporate reorganisation the former Barclays Bank plc became a group holding company, renamed Barclays Group Plc, and UK retail banking was integrated under the former BBI, and renamed Barclays Bank PLC from Barclays Bank Limited.

In response to the Big Bang on the London Stock Exchange, in 1986 Barclays bought UK stockbroker de Zoete & Bevan and jobbing firm Wedd Durlacher (formerly Wedd Jefferson). They were merged with Barclays Merchant Bank to form Barclays de Zoete Wedd (BZW). Also that year Barclays sold its South African business operating under the Barclays National Bank name after protests against Barclays' involvement in South Africa and its apartheid government.

Barclays introduced the Connect card in June 1987, the first debit card in the United Kingdom.

In 1988, Barclays sold Barclays Bank of California, which at that time was the 17th-largest bank in California measured by assets, to Wells Fargo for US$125 million in cash.

Edgar Pearce, the "Mardi Gra Bomber", began a terror campaign against the bank and the supermarket chain Sainsbury's in 1994.

Barclays bought Wells Fargo Nikko Investment Advisors (WFNIA) in 1996 and merged it with BZW Investment Management to form Barclays Global Investors. Bob Diamond took charge of the investment banking businesses that year.

Two years later, in 1998, the BZW business was broken up and the Equity and Corporate Finance Divisions were sold to Credit Suisse First Boston: Barclays retained the debt-focused Fixed Income business and Structured Capital Markets which formed the foundation of the rebranded Barclays Capital (BarCap). Barclays Capital had offices in over 29 countries and employed over 20,000 people, with over 7,000 people working in its IT division.

In 1998, Barclays Bank agreed to pay $3.6m to Jews whose assets were seized from French branches of the British-based bank during World War II. Barclays, along with seven French banks, was named in a lawsuit filed in New York on behalf of Jews who were unable to reclaim money they deposited during the Nazi era.

In an unusual move as part of the trend at the time for free ISPs, Barclays launched an internet service in 1999 called Barclays.net. This entity was acquired by British Telecom in 2001.

In the 1990s, Barclays helped to fund President Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe. The most controversial of a set of loans provided by Barclays was the £30 million it gave to help sustain land reforms that saw Mugabe seize white-owned farmland and drive more than 100,000 black workers from their homes. Opponents have called the bank's involvement a "disgrace" and an "insult" to the millions who have suffered human rights abuses. A Barclays spokesman said the bank has had customers in Zimbabwe for decades and abandoning them now would make matters worse, "We are committed to continuing to provide a service to those customers in what is clearly a difficult operating environment".Barclays also provided two of Mugabe's associates with bank accounts, ignoring European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe. The men are Elliot Manyika and minister of public service Nicholas Goche. Barclays has defended its position by insisting that the EU rules do not apply to its 67%-owned Zimbabwean subsidiary because it was incorporated outside the EU.

In August 2000, Barclays took over the recently de-mutualised Woolwich PLC, formerly the Woolwich Building Society,^[53] in a £5.4 billion acquisition. Woolwich thus joined the Barclays group of companies, and the Woolwich name was retained after the acquisition. The company's head office remained in Bexleyheath, south-east London, four miles (6 km) from the original head office in Woolwich.

Barclays closed 171 branches in the UK in 2001, many of them in rural communities: Barclays called itself "The Big Bank", but this name was quickly given a low profile after a series of embarrassing PR stunts.

On 31 October 2001, Barclays and CIBC agreed to combine their Caribbean operations to establish a joint venture company known as FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB).

In April 2002, Barclays enacted a 4:1 share split.

In 2003, Barclays bought the American credit card company Juniper Bank from CIBC, re-branding it as "Barclays Bank Delaware".^[58] The same year saw the acquisition of Banco Zaragozano, the 11th-largest Spanish bank.

Barclays took over sponsorship of the Premier League from Barclaycard in 2004.^[60] In May 2005, Barclays moved its group headquarters from Lombard Street in the City of London to One Churchill Place in Canary Wharf. Also in 2005 Barclays sealed a £2.6bn takeover of Absa Group Limited, South Africa's largest retail bank, acquiring a 54% stake on 27 July 2005.

Then in 2006, Barclays purchased the HomEq Servicing Corporation for US$469 million in cash from Wachovia Corp.That year also saw the acquisition of the financial website CompareTheLoan and Barclays announcing plans to rebrand Woolwich branches as Barclays, migrating Woolwich customers onto Barclays accounts and migrating back-office processes onto Barclays systems—the Woolwich brand was to be used for Barclays mortgages. Barclays also exited retail-banking operations in the Caribbean-region which extended as far back as 1837 through selling of its joint venture stake in FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB) to CIBC for between $989 million and $1.08 billion.