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Bank of Otago

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The Bank of Otago (Limited)
Company typepublic listed company
IndustryBanking
FoundedApril 1863; 161 years ago (April 1863)
Defunct ()
HeadquartersDunedin,
New Zealand
Key people
ProductsBanking, financial and saving services
Oamaru branch building later bought by the since defunct National Bank

The Bank of Otago Limited was incorporateded in London in 1863. The sale of its shares was promoted by its board of directors, including Alexander Lang Elder, referring to the Otago goldfields and the spectacular growth in the amount of gold exported from Otago.[1][2] The shares were listed on the London Stock Exchange and special legislation enacted in New Zealand, Bank of Otago Limited Act 1863.[3][4]

John Bathgate was sent by the London board to be colonial manager (chief executive) arriving in Dunedin in late 1863. He was a Scottish solicitor with banking experience, his practice in Peebles —then a centre of the Scottish woollen industry— had extended to his taking on the Peebles agency for the Union Bank of Scotland.[5] He left his Bank of Otago post in 1867 after two of his accounts proved to be unsatisfactory investments of bank funds.

He was replaced by Australian-born William Larnach, appointed from London, who arrived in Dunedin in September 1867 to be chief colonial manager of the Bank of Otago. Larnach had joined the Bank of New South Wales about 1863 and risen to manager of their Geelong branch at a time when poor communications placed heavy responsibility on branch managers. Larnach was a family friend of W. J. T. Clarke then said to be the richest man in Australasia. After Bank of Otago merged with the National Bank he remained with them a further twelve months.[6]

The National Bank of New Zealand was incorporated by a quite different group of people in London in 1872 including a number of New Zealand residents: former governor, Thomas Gore Browne, former Speaker Charles Clifford and former Wellington Provincial Superintendent Isaac Featherston.[7]

The negotiation of the terms on which The National Bank of New Zealand would absorb The Bank of Otago were completed on 17 April 1873 and the business was handed over by William Larnach who remained manager of its new form.[8][9]

John Bathgate, first manager, circa 1873
William Larnach, second manager

References

  1. ^ Money-Market & City Intelligence. The Times, Saturday, April 25, 1863, Issue 24542, p.13.
  2. ^ Classified advertisements, The Times, 29 April 1863, page 1
  3. ^ New Zealand Acts as Enacted
  4. ^ The Bank of Otago Limited. Otago Daily Times 10 October 1863, Page 4
  5. ^ G. H. Scholefield, Bathgate, John. A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Wellington 1940. page 48
  6. ^ G. H. Scholefield, Larnach, William James Mudie. A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Wellington 1940. page 485
  7. ^ Classified advertisements, The Times, 16 August 1872, page 1
  8. ^ The Evening Post 17 April 1873 Page 2
  9. ^ Otago Daily Times 14 May 1873 Page 2