The Royal British Bank was a British joint-stock bank, established under a Royal Charter in 1849, that collapsed in 1856. This caused a scandal. The circumstances were described by The Economist as "an extraordinary example of the little trouble the public take to think for themselves".
19-564: The bank's main founders were John MacGregor , a Member of Parliament for Glasgow, and Edward Mullins, a solicitor. After difficulties in raising the necessary capital, the bank was launched in 1849. After press articles alleging substantial losses appeared in 1856, the share price dropped and in September 1856 the bank suspended operations after experiencing a run, leaving 6,000 depositors owed money. It then became apparent that various directors and former directors had taken substantial sums from
38-517: A single day. If a resigning MP wishes to contest the following by-election, as Douglas Carswell did in 2014, they need to resign the stewardship to avoid further disqualification. The incumbent steward of the Manor of Northstead is Scott Benton , formerly the Independent (elected Conservative) MP for Blackpool South . Some former MPs have held both offices of Steward of the Manor of Northstead and of
57-564: The Académie de l'Industrie Agricole . MacGregor also published: MacGregor also edited, for Bohn's Standard Library , De Lolme 's Constitution of England , with a life of the author, and notes, London, 1853. [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : McMullen, James (1893). " MacGregor, John (1797-1857) ". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 35. London: Smith, Elder & Co. Steward of
76-606: The Board of Trade on the Zollverein . In 1839 he represented the British government in the negotiations with the Kingdom of Naples for a revision of the commercial treaty of 1816. In 1840 he succeeded James Deacon Hume as one of the joint secretaries of the Board of Trade . A strong free-trader, he prompted Joseph Hume 's motion for a select committee on import duties, and gave evidence before
95-573: The Eastern Archipelago Company , as well as the Royal British Bank, gave rise to a fraud trial. He lived at 61 Ennismore Gardens , London, from 1849 to 1855 The Royal British Bank stopped payment in September 1856, and MacGregor, who had absconded shortly before, died at Boulogne on 23 April 1857, indebted to the bank in the sum of £7,362. On his return to Europe (about 1828) he published Historical and Descriptive Sketches of
114-706: The Manor of Northstead The office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead functions as a procedural device to allow a member of Parliament (MP) to resign from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. As members of the House of Commons are forbidden from formally resigning, a legal fiction is used to circumvent this prohibition: appointment to an " office of profit under The Crown " disqualifies an individual from sitting as an MP. As such, several such positions are maintained to allow MPs to resign. Currently,
133-479: The Manor of Northstead and Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds are alternated so that two MPs can resign at once (as happened on 23 January 2017 when Tristram Hunt and Jamie Reed resigned). However, every new appointment revokes the previous one, so there is no difficulty in situations in which more than two resign, such as the 1985 walkout of Ulster Unionist MPs when several separate appointments were made on
152-500: The Maritime Colonies of British America , London, 1828; and Observations on Emigration to British America , London, 1829. In 1830 he made a tour on the continent of Europe, and published a travel book based on it, My Note-book (1835), London, 3 vols. With his friend James Deacon Hume, he projected in 1832 a major work on international commercial statistics. It occupied him during the next seven years, during which he visited most of
171-561: The Monies, Weights, and Measures of all Nations, including all British Commercial Treaties with Foreign States, collected from Authentic Records, and consolidated with especial reference to British and Foreign Products, Trade, and Navigation , London, 1844–8, 3 vols. Karl Marx referred to him as "the celebrated statistical writer" in The Economic Crisis in Europe (1862). He was a member of
190-578: The bank, though most of the directors in post at the time of the collapse had not done so. The eight surviving directors—among them Henry Dunning Macleod —were put on trial in February 1858. (The bank's founder, MacGregor, had fled to France and died there in 1857.) They were tried for conspiracy to defraud the bank's customers at the Court of Queen's Bench before the Lord Chief Justice , Lord Campbell . On
209-576: The committee (July 1840), against protectionism . On the repeal of the Corn Laws , MacGregor gave up his post at the Board of Trade, and entered parliamentary politics, He was elected as a Whig Member of Parliament for Glasgow in July 1847, resigning in 1857 shortly before his death, by becoming Steward of the Manor of Northstead . He spoke frequently on commercial, financial, and colonial questions. MacGregor
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#1732869480068228-534: The convicted, remained in prison; the contrast with the treatment of the directors in the City of Glasgow Bank collapse is perhaps instructive. The collapse gave rise to a new legislation tightening banking regulation, including the publication of balance sheets and the auditing of accounts. This United Kingdom bank or insurance-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . John MacGregor (Glasgow MP) John MacGregor (1797–1857)
247-675: The countries of Europe. During his tenure of office he made 22 parliamentary statistical reports, in Commercial Tariffs and Regulations of the several States of Europe and America, together with the Commercial Treaties between England and Foreign Countries , published, with appendix, in 8 vols., London, 1841–50; and in A Digest of the Productive Resources, Commercial Legislation, Customs Tariffs, Navigation, Port and Quarantine Laws and Charges, Shipping, Imports and Exports, and
266-522: The first day of the trial, the Prince of Wales attended and sat on the bench next to the Lord Chief Justice. The jury found each of the defendants guilty of the charges and they were given sentences ranging from a nominal fine of one shilling to imprisonment for up to one year. By July 1858, however, only one of the convicted, the former manager of the bank, and arguably the least influential person among
285-505: The office of high sheriff; he was dismissed as a result of involvement in the dealings of Charles Douglass Smith . Put on trial at Smith's behest, he became popular and in 1824 a member of the House of Assembly. He left Canada, travelling through North America, collecting statistics. Returning to the UK, MacGregor set up as a commission agent in Liverpool , in 1827. In 1836, MacGregor reported to
304-458: The offices of Steward of the Manor of Northstead and Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds are used, and are specifically designated for this purpose under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 ; several other offices have also been used historically. The appointment is traditionally made by the chancellor of the Exchequer . The position was reworked in 1861 by William Ewart Gladstone , who
323-521: Was a Scottish statistician and politician. MacGregor was born at Drynie , near Stornoway , on the Western Isles , Scotland, the eldest son of Janet (née Ross) and David MacGregor. The family emigrated to Canada in 1803, sailing to Pictou, Nova Scotia . In 1806, they moved to Covehead on Prince Edward Island . As a young man MacGregor set up as a merchant in Charlottetown . In 1822, he served in
342-564: Was the principal promoter and sometime chairman of the Royal British Bank , incorporated by royal charter in 1849. Though it was far from prosperous, he shamelessly puffed it, in a chapter on "Banking" contributed to Edwin Troxell Freedley's Money in 1853. He was also a party to the publication of accounts which concealed the true position of the bank. This was not the only occasion on which he lent his status as an MP to companies; and
361-507: Was worried about the honour conferred by appointment to people such as Edwin James , who had fled to the United States over £100,000 in debt. As such, the letter by the chancellor was rewritten to omit any references to honour. The office was first used in this way on 20 March 1844 to allow Sir George Henry Rose , MP for Christchurch , to resign his seat. Appointees to the offices of Steward of
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