Old Photograph Bank of Scotland Perth Scotland

Old photograph of the Bank of Scotland on St John Street in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. The Governor and Company of the Bank of Scotland was established by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland on 17 July 1695, the Act for erecting a Bank in Scotland, opening for business in February 1696. Although established soon after the Bank of England in 1694, the Bank of Scotland was a very different institution. Where the Bank of England was established specifically to finance defence spending by the English government, the Bank of Scotland was established by the Scottish government to support Scottish business, and was prohibited from lending to the government without parliamentary approval. The founding Act granted the bank a monopoly on public banking in Scotland for 21 years, permitted the bank's directors to raise a nominal capital of £1,200,000 pound Scots, gave the proprietors limited liability, and in the final clause, repealed only in 1920, made all foreign born proprietors naturalised Scotsmen " to all Intents and Purposes whatsoever ". John Holland, an Englishman, was one of the bank's founders. Its first chief accountant was George Watson.



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