Devon and Cornwall Bank
The Devon and Cornwall Bank was a bank which operated in the Westcountry of England between 1832 and 1906, when it was taken-over by Lloyds Bank.
History
The bank was established in 1832 as a joint-stock company named Plymouth & Devonport Banking Company by a group of Westcountry businessmen as a vehicle to effect the purchase of Hingston & Prideaux, a private Westcountry bank which had encountered financial difficulties.Hingston & Prideaux
Founding
The Kingsbridge historian Abraham Hawkins wrote in 1819:Thus two separate banks were in existence: one at Kingsbridge and another at Plymouth
Development
On 31 October 1813 the banking partnership known as Prideaux, Square, Hingston and Prideaux of Kingsbridge in Devon "Senior", John Square, Joseph Hingston and Walter Prideaux "Junior" was dissolved by mutual consent to allow for the retirement of Joseph Hingston, and was immediately reformed as Prideaux, Square and Prideaux.Joseph Hingston's new partner in the Plymouth bank was Walter Prideaux, a cousin of the Kingsbridge bankers, a son of George Prideaux of Kingsbridge by his wife Anna Debell Cookworthy, and a Quaker associated with the Plymouth Brethren, having moved from Kingsbridge to Plymouth in 1812. It is not clear what relation he was to the ancient gentry family of Prideaux seated variously at Orcheton, Modbury; Adeston, Holbeton; Thuborough, Sutcombe; Soldon, Holsworthy; Netherton, Farway; Ashburton; Nutwell, Woodbury; Ford Abbey, Thorncombe all in Devon, and at Prideaux Place, Padstow and Prideaux Castle, Luxulyan, in Cornwall. Fox stated in regard of the Kingsbridge branch of Prideaux: "We have no intention... of tracing the pedigree back to old Paganus de Prideaux, who came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and who was Lord of the Castle of Prideaux, in Cornwall".
In 1798 Messrs. Walter Prideaux and John Roope erected extensive machinery at the former Kingsbridge corn-mill, which they converted into a woollen manufactory, where for a number of years the serge or long-ell trade was carried on, to supply the East India Company with goods for India. One of the sons of Walter Prideaux "Junior" was Walter Were Prideaux, one of the partners in the Kingsbridge Bank on its bankruptcy in 1825.
In 1805 Walter Prideaux, the Plymouth banker, married Sarah-Ball Hingston, a daughter of his partner Joseph Hingston, merchant, of Dodbrooke in Devon, by his first wife Sarah Ball, a daughter of Joseph Ball of Bridgwater in Somerset. Sarah's brother, also by their father's first wife, was Joseph Hingston of Dodbrooke. Walter Prideaux had six sons and five daughters, including Walter Prideaux, a lawyer and poet, and the lawyer Frederick Prideaux, author of Prideaux's Precedents in Conveyancing, and his daughter Sarah Anna Prideaux was married to the Quaker Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, from Falmouth, the biblical scholar, textual critic, and theologian..
In 1825 the partners in Hingston & Prideaux Bank were Joseph Hingston and Walter Prideaux of Plymouth.
The Cookworthy Museum in Kingsbridge possesses a one pound banknote issued by the "Kingsbridge Bank", dated in writing 1 January 1825 and signed by Walter Prideaux jnr, with a crest on left. The back bears a red and black design with "G.R. IV" with central crest, five pence above and 'ONE' below.