Daily Archives: March 28, 2020

Women in Banking #WomensHistoryMonth

Welcome to my quarterly blog at A Slice of Orange!

We’re living in interesting times, and I was tempted to write a post about historical plagues and pandemics… But, if you’re like me, you’re heartily sick of hearing about them.

So, since March is Women’s History Month in the U.S., I’m sharing a gem of a book I found about women bankers.

Women Who Made Money: Women Partners in British Private Banks 1752-1906 , by Margaret Dawes and Nesta Selwyn

Regency romance enthusiasts will know the story of Sarah Sophia Fane Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey and one of the patronesses of Almack’s. Sarah inherited a partnership in Child’s Bank, and became an active participant in the bank’s management until her death in 1867. (Her mother, also named Sarah, had been cut out of the will after her scandalous elopement to Gretna Green with the Earl of Westmoreland!)

But, you ask, didn’t the law say that all of a woman’s property became her husband’s upon marriage?

The authors explain how some women, either through the wisdom of enlightened parents or their own power as widows managed this:

The law has always offered loop-holes. Provision could be made in her marriage settlement for a woman to retain the use of her own property . . . It was also possible for a woman’s property to be placed in the hands of trustees before her marriage, so that her husband could have no use of it without her consent.

Marriage settlements were extremely important financial and legal agreements negotiated by wealthy parties prior to marriage. Today, we call those “pre-nups”.

Middle-class Country Bankers

The book includes the stories of Lady Jersey and Harriet Mellon Coutts, an actress who inherited her husband’s interest in Coutts Bank and went on to marry the Duke of St. Albans (and still retain ownership of her wealth). But most of the seventy-six women bankers were solidly middle-class.

Many women established country banks with husbands or sons. Some inherited banks. Many also engaged alone or with husbands in other types of commerce, such as shipping, mining, or manufacturing.

And you won’t find most of these women mentioned in Wikipedia!

If you’re interested in a chronicle of women in business in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, you might enjoy this book.

Wishing you much good health until we meet again in June!