Edmund John Glynn - Politician and Banker

Politician and Banker

On his return Glynn immediately became a leading member of a Cornish political party dedicated to stamping out political corruption and supporting the reform of parliament. He campaigned for the political principles of his father, promoting the rights of the individual against the state and the freedom of the press. In 1810 the party founded its own newspaper, The West Briton, and Glynn is thought to have been one of its original owners. He put his business affairs in the hands of Adam Thomson, a Scotsman who he had initially brought to Cornwall to manage the farms on the Glynn estate. In 1811 Glynn and Thomson were among the partners at the foundation of the North Cornwall Bank which had its main office at Bodmin. The bank served the local agricultural community and it encountered severe difficulties at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 when food prices and farm rents fell. By 1818 Glynn and Thomson were its only remaining active partners and while Glynn kept the bank in business by injecting his own money he left its management entirely to Thomson.

Thomson used the funds of the North Cornwall Bank to further his own business interests and his enemies deliberately undermined confidence in its banknotes. There was a run on the bank and it failed in 1819 leaving a large amount owing to its London agents. As a partner Glynn was liable for its debts and during the subsequent litigation he was committed to the King’s Bench debtors prison in January 1823. He was released shortly before being declared bankrupt in November that year. In 1826 it was estimated that he had liabilities of £110,000 including money owed to his daughters. The money raised from the eventual sale of his heavily mortgaged estates was insufficient to fully repay these debts.