Acquired by the District Bank in 1863, the bank was eventually owner by the National Westminster Bank and subsequently the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The branch was closed in the early 1990s during the Nat West, bank closure programme.

The picture is in the EFHA archive held by Barbara Nightingale and appeared in our newsletter, Twisle Times, December 2003.

THE LOYD ENTWISLE BANK by Barbara Nightingale, November 2003

The company developed from the business of John Jones, a tea dealer in Market-stead Lane, Manchester, who began to offer banking services to his customers.  In the 1780s JOHN JONES & CO. dispensed with the tea business to concentrate on banking. Later in that decade the bank moved to 35 King Street, where it remained through several changes of name, including SAMUEL & WILLIAM JONES LOYD & CO. and JONES LOYD & CO.

In 1848 Edward Loyd, junior, William Entwisle, Henry Bury and Thomas Barlow Jervis took over the running of the bank, trading under the name of LOYD ENTWISLE & CO. In 1863 the company was acquired by the MANCHESTER & LIVERPOOL DISTRICT BANK LTD. the name being shortened to DISTRICT BANK in 1924. In 1970 the National Provincial, Westminster, and District Banks merged and started trading under the NATIONAL WESTMINSTER name.

35 KING STREET, MANCHESTER is now a listed building.  It was originally a private house built in 1736 by Dr. Peter Mainwaring, who lived there for nearly 50 years.  The site was a cornfield and garden and was described in the deeds as Tenter’s croft or Wilkinson’s Garden.  The appearance of the building remains much as it was when it was built, and “it is one of Manchester’s few old brick buildings with any pretension to architectural quality.”  [“The Brickbuilder”, April 1924.]

THE BANKERS

 In this article I am confining myself to William Entwisle and his family. Biographical details of the other partners will be included in an extended version to be published on our Website.

WILLIAM ENTWISLE’s great-grandfather was John Entwisle of John Entwisle and Sons, check and fustian manufacturers, Norfolk Street; the business, as was customary at the time, was carried on in premises behind, while the front part of the building was the merchant’s private residence.  Hence the number of street names in old Manchester beginning with Back.  John Entwisle died in 1773 and his eldest son, James, continued to reside in Norfolk Street.

James had two sons, Thomas and Richard, who married Frederica Margarita Phillipino von Barnard, and moved to Rusholme House, near Manchester. Richard and Frederica had 4 daughters and 4 sons, three of whom tragically died young:  James drowned in North America in November 1823, Richard in 1831, and Henry in an encounter with Italian brigands in March 1834.  The youngest son was the future banker, William, who remained at Rusholme when his father died on 30 May 1836, aged 65.

WILLIAM ENTWISLE was educated at Westminster and Cambridge. He married Hannah Loyd, daughter of Edward Loyd, senior, on 27 April 1837. The 1841 Census describes the 32-year-old William as ‘Independent’ and in 1861 he was still living at Rusholme House, described as ‘Deputy Lieutenant, Magistrate and Banker’. 

In 1841 William Entwisle made his first attempt to become a Member of Parliament, but was unsuccessful.  However, in May 1844 in an election for the South Lancashire seat, William Brown, of Liverpool (Free Trade) gained 6,984 votes and William Entwisle, of Rusholme (Conservative) gained  7,562 votes to win the seat, which he held until 1847.

In 1844 William Entwisle was also called to the Bar, but was rarely seen on circuit. He joined the Loyd Entwisle Bank in 1848.

On 10 November 1855 William Entwisle wrote a letter to Lord Overstone, a leading figure in banking and economics, on the subject of decimal coinage, which was at that time under discussion. He proposed that instead of the pound sterling we should adopt the half sovereign, under a new name, as the unit of currency; this would allow us to retain existing gold and silver coins unaltered, except in the name of the sixpence; and by issuing one new copper coin, equal to one-tenth or one-fifth of a shilling, we should complete the decimal scale. Calculations would be made in shillings and pence – ten pence to a shilling.  He thought the half penny should be retained because “it would afford the means of almost exact comparison between the new copper coinage and the old.”

“We should thus, by the introduction of only one new copper coin and a hardly appreciable change in the value of another be in possession of a complete decimal coinage admitting in all its component parts, gold, silver and copper, easy comparison with all our old coins best known among the mass of the people.”

Further correspondence took place between them. A hand-written copy and typescript were sent to me by the Royal Bank of Scotland and it is proposed to publish the correspondence on our EFHA website. [see: Correspondence - Decimal Coinage]

Despite the fact that decimalisation was being discussed in the mid-19^th century decimal currency was not introduced in Britain until Monday, 15 February 1971.

William Entwisle died at the age of 57.  The entry in the ‘National Calendar of the Grants of Probate & Letters of Administration’ reads: 

ENTWISLE, WILLIAM.  Late of 23 Upper Hyde Park Gardens, Middlesex, died 18 August 1865 at Hanford, Dorset, proved at the Principal registry 15 September 1865 by Edward Loyd Entwisle, Lillesden, Kent, esquire, & Reginald Haigh, Liverpool, merchant, nephew.  Effects £180,000.

None of his children appear to have followed their father into banking: William, baptised at Manchester Cathedral on 27 June 1839, became a Cornet in the 2^nd Regiment Life Guards, and died in Southport, Lancashire in 1860; Richard, baptised at Manchester Cathedral on 4 December 1840, was still unmarried in 1881, residing at Glanyrannell Park Mansion, Talley, Carmarthenshire, Wales, and described as a ‘barrister not in practice’. He died in Brighton, Sussex on 4 October 1894, aged 54;

John, baptised at Manchester Cathedral on 3 January 1841; Friederica Frances, baptised at Manchester Cathedral on 1 November 1842, married Charles Alfred Swinburne, a solicitor, and in 1881 resided at 46 Devonshire Street, Portland Place, Middlesex; Bernhard Henry, born in Paddington, Middlesex, in 1847, became a Captain in the 5^th Regiment Dragoon Guards, and died on 22 September 1877 in Carlow, Ireland; Edward Loyd, baptised on 11 April 1852 at St. James, Birch in Rusholme, became a Captain in the 1^st Regiment Royal Dragoons, and died on 16 January 1881 aged 28, at 57 Queens Gate, South Kensington.

Hannah Entwisle outlived her husband by many years.  In 1901, at the age of 85, she was living in Sunninghill, Berkshire, where she died on 25 November 1907.

© Barbara Nightingale 2003