Readers of Dickens' Tale of Tivo Cities will recall its description of Tellson's Bank, yet few are aware that this imaginary institution was drawn from the actual bank of Child & Co., the oldest private bank in England and possibly in the world.
Child's bank was founded about 1560 and has occupied the same site in Fleet Street ever since. Among its noted depositors have been Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Pepys, Horace Walpole, John Dryden, Charles II, the Merry Monarch, and his famous mistress Nell Gwyn.
The bank finally came into possession of the Earls of...
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