Officers and ORs bank accounts. Do the records...

[Guest Pete Wood]

Many fine old British banks have amalgamated over the last 100 years, and I wondered if any records survive that may be of use to the military historian.

When officers died, I have seen in their records that payments were made to the next of kin.

Would the banks have archives which might yield more information....?

Has anyone explored this avenue...?

[jemimajane]

Even as a bank employee for 19 years, I can't help much with this question apart from the fact that the Pall Mall (Cox's and Kings) branch of Lloyds Bank (Now Lloyds TSB) was regarded as the bank/branch of the Services .

[Neil Burns]

I think you would have difficulty accessing personal banking records even if they did exist. Military records are essentially public documents after a set amount of time but I don't think banking records ever become public domain.

Take care,

Neil

[Chris_Baker]

The service records of officers who died often contain correspondence regarding their wills and other financial matters. They can be very interesting, too.

There are also announcements in the London Gazette for men of all ranks who died, regarding (I presume, having seen them but never really looked in detail at what it was telling me) the settlement of military monetary affairs.

[Will O'Brien]

Teapots................Christine Liava'a was asking a similar question on another thread..........what I posted there is true for your question also.......I work for a UK bank at one of its main administration offices. I am fairly confident that no UK based bank would have records pertaining to WWI soldiers still in existence ...........As I said to Christine banking in general is a perpetual paperwork generating monster & there is simply not the physical space to store it all. Given this once a customer is deceased or an account has been closed for a suitable period, records paper & otherwise are simply junked. Unless the records had 'significant historical value' I can't imagine them being kept..............Also I am unsure how many OR's would have actually used a bank or had a bank account..... Also the wonders of the Data Protection Act only allow banks to keep up to date and relevant records............old, defunked & obsolete information must be deleted if keeping it serves no valid purpose or function. Whilst the DPAct is not applicable where dead customers are concerned it is still frowned upon keeping what is seen as 'irrelevant' records relating to them.