For most of the Victorian period, the English banking system was riddled with fraud and mismanagement. Each wave of bank failures brought forth new revelations of criminal conduct. The financial crises of 1857 and 1866 and the collapse of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878 were but the high-water marks in an age of widespread commercial dishonesty. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, improvements in bank management and accountancy had reduced the level of fraud, though by no means had eliminated it.

Banking lies at the heart of the modern commercial nexus. As Thomas Joplin, founder of the National Provincial Bank, wrote in 1827: “Banks are by far the most important of all our commercial establishments. They are the fountains of our currency, the depositories of our capital, and at once the wheels and pillars of our trade. Business to any great extent could not be carried on without them.” For the greater part of the nineteenth century, banks were the most important type of joint-stock company after railways. Between 1844 and 1868, 291 banks were formed. Banking promotions peaked in the early sixties, 36.4% of the capital offered to the public and 27% of subscribed capital was from banks and finance companies in the years between 1863 and 1866. In 1844 total bank capital and deposits for the nation amounted to some £139 million or 34% of national income. The bulk of these deposits was in the form of small sums from a very large number of customers.