Bank of Liverpool - Expansion in Liverpool

Expansion in Liverpool

After assuming limited liability, the Bank became more expansive. It first consolidated its position as the premier Liverpool bank by acquiring Arthur Heywood, Sons and Company in 1883. Heywood was about one fifth the size of the Bank of Liverpool but of much longer history. Arthur and Benjamin Heywood were merchant traders, becoming “experienced in the African trade, engaged to some extent in privateering and had their Letters of Marque”. Heywoods became one of the merchants to whom funds could be trusted and in 1773 they became bankers as well as merchants. Arthur Heywood, Sons (Benjamin had left to start a bank in Manchester) became one of the leading private banks in Liverpool and its accounts were to include the Corporation of Liverpool, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and the Liverpool Cathedral.

It was only in 1881 that the Bank had opened its first branch, in Victoria Street but following the Heywood acquisition the Bank opened a further nine branches within a two year period. In 1888 the Bank took over the Liverpool business of Brown, Shipley & Co. when the latter moved its headquarters to London. The following year it acquired the Liverpool Commercial Banking Company, a bank founded in 1832, and at the time of its acquisition, a little smaller than Heywood.