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Parsees. At one time, with a German Chairman and an American Deputy Chairman, the Board had no British members. The financial failure of Dent, in 1867, had the effect of freeing the Bank from dependence on any one enterprise and brought about more independent management control. Within months of setting up its headquarters in Hong Kong a branch was opened in London, and further branches were established in San Francisco (1875), New York (1880), Lyons (1881) and Hamburg (1889). By the 1880s The Hong Kong Bank had become banker to the Hong Kong Government, and to this day it is, in effect, the Central Bank of the Territory.
World War I proved a difficult period, and its German directors resigned shortly after hostilities commenced. The Bank resumed its leading position in China and the Far East in the 1920s and 30s. Like the Chartered Bank, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank's branch in Shanghai operated without interruption all through the Cultural Revolution.
Today 'Wardley' is the name of an investment company associated with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. In 1864, Wardley House (demolished in 1882 when its new bank building was completed) was the first premises of the Bank. William Henry Wardley was a staff member of Gibb Livingston. He started his own firm about 1850. Although the company was taken over by F.B. Johnson and James Bowman the name was retained. It stopped trading about 1861, before the Bank was established. But the name, Wardley, has been perpetuated.
The Mercantile Bank
The old Mercantile Bank can be traced back to October 1853, with the founding of the Mercantile Bank of Bombay. Within two months it had become the Mercantile Bank of India, London and China, a co-partnership of four Indian proprietors and four British. An office was opened in London almost immediately, and other offices, in 1854, in Madras, Colombo and Kandy. In 1855 branches started at Calcutta, Singapore, Canton, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Comparing these dates with the Chartered Bank, Mercantile got off to a quicker start, although both banks were established in the same year. Mercantile had a branch in Hong Kong, for example, four years before Chartered.
Skipping a century, in 1958 the name was shortened to ‘Mercantile