The Bank of Upper Canada was established in 1821 under a charter granted by the legislature of Upper Canada in 1819 to a group of Kingston merchants. The charter was appropriated by the more influential Executive Councillors to the Lt. Governor, the Rev. John Strachan and William Allan, and moved to Toronto. The bank was closely associated with the group that came to be known as the Family Compact, and it formed a large part of their wealth. The association with the Family Compact and its underhanded practices made Reformers, including Mackenzie, regard the Bank of Upper Canada as a prop of the government. Complaints about the bank were a staple of Reform agitation in the 1830s because of its monopoly and aggressive legal actions against debtors.
History
Bank of the Family Compact
The first Bank of Upper Canada was located on the south-east corner of King and Frederick streets in York, Upper Canada (later Toronto, Canada West). York was then too small for a bank, and its promoters were unable to raise even the minimal 10% of the £200,000 authorized capital required for start-up. The bank succeeded only because its promoters had the political influence to have that minimum reduced by half, and the provincial government subscribed for 2000 of its 8000 shares. The lieutenant-governor appointed four of the bank's fifteen directors, making for a tight bond between the nominally private company and the state. Despite the tight bonds, the Receiver General, the reform-leaning John Henry Dunn, refused to use the bank for government business.
The bank's principal promoters were the Rev. John Strachan and William Allan. William Allan, who became president, was also an Executive and Legislative Councillor. He, like Strachan, played a key role in solidifying the Family Compact and ensuring its influence within the colonial state. Forty-four men served as bank directors during the 1830s; eleven of them were executive councillors, fifteen of them were legislative councillors, and thirteen were magistrates in Toronto. More importantly, all 11 men who had ever sat on the Executive Council also sat on the board of the bank at one time or another. Ten of the men also sat on the Legislative Council. The overlapping membership on the boards of the Bank of Upper Canada and on the Executive and Legislative Councils served to integrate the economic and political activities of the church, state, and the "financial sector." The overlapping memberships reinforced the oligarchic nature of power in the colony and allowed the administration to operate without any effective elective check. Henry John Boulton, the solicitor general, author of the bank incorporation bill and the bank's lawyer, admitted the bank was a "terrible engine in the hands of the provincial administration."
William Lyon Mackenzie, the Reform politician and newspaper publisher, was the first to demonstrate the nature of that oligarchic power by showing that the government, its officers, and legislative councillors owned 5,381 of its 8,000 shares. Once elected to the House of Assembly, he criticized the Bank's lack of transparency and accountability to the legislature.
Bank officers of the Family Compact
William Allan (1822–1835) William Proudfoot (1835–1861) Thomas Gibbs Ridout, cashier (general manager) (1822–1861) Henry John Boulton, lawyer (1825-1833)
The directorate of the bank was dominated by government officers. Forty-four men served as bank directors during the 1830s, eleven of them being executive councillors, fifteen of them were legislative councillors, and thirteen were magistrates in Toronto.
The "Pretended Bank" (at Kingston) and the Commercial Bank of the Midland District The Bank of Upper Canada at York (Toronto) had obtained its charter at the expense of the larger, more economically developed town of Kingston. Deprived of their charter, they established an unchartered bank in 1818 supported with American capital. The government refused to accept its notes given its American ties, and it went bankrupt in 1822. After its failure, the Bank of Upper Canada used all of its influence to prevent any other bank from being chartered in the province. The monopoly was crucial to keeping its notes in circulation and boosting its profits. It succeeded only until 1832, when the Commercial Bank of the Midland District was chartered finally giving Kingston the bank it desired.