Looking back with Ian Scott on a Falkirk banking tragedy

Our first local venture, the Falkirk Banking Company, was launched in 1787 by a number of leading men who saw an opportunity to help promote the growth of new industry while making a tidy profit when these enterprises were successful. Men like John Heugh of Gartcows and Dr John Meek of Campfield were shrewd investors whose families made small fortunes when the bank wound up in 1826. Of course it wasn’t always such a financial success – our second bank, the Union opened in Bank Street (where else?) in 1803, but collapsed after 13 years with debts of £60,000.

Competition had arrived in the form of the big national banks which many felt would offer greater security and less risk. However the experience of the Commercial Bank proved that even in the best regulated world things can go wrong. The bank had opened in the old Union Bank office in 1820 and was so successful that they moved to fine new premises in the High Street in 1832. This is the handsome building opposite the entry to Cow Wynd afterwards occupied by Hope the ironmonger and later Festus Moffat. It is now home to the Bank of Scotland. For most of the bank’s time in Falkirk the manager, or ‘agent’ as he was called, was Henry Salmon whose fall from grace has all the elements of a Greek tragedy which is ironic given the style of the new building.

Henry was far and away Falkirk’s leading man. He was elected as our first Provost in 1833 and thereafter was involved in all the main activities of the burgh often acting as chairman at banquets to celebrate occasions like the Queen’s birthday. He was a Justice of the Peace and a leading church elder as well as chairman of the Parochial Board. But ‘Mr Falkirk’ was not all he seemed.

One morning in 1857 inspectors from Edinburgh visited the bank to carry out a routine check and found that around £30,000 was missing, Henry was nowhere to be found and a huge search was launched by the local and national constabulary. After several days the search ended in a tragic discovery in the stable of a small inn in far off Conway in Wales where he was found hanged. What had prompted this sudden and totally unexpected sequence of events was never discovered but his death was not the end of the matter.

His two clerks, William Reid and Thomas Gentles, were charged with failing to follow procedure and while everyone, including the judge Lord Handyside, recognised that they had gained nothing financially and had been fooled by Salmon they went to prison for 18 months. It is hard to grasp the scale of this fraud. £30,000 in 1857 when a skilled working man earned about £75 per annum must equate to well over £1 million at today’s prices. Was any of the money recovered? What did he do with it all? Was he acting alone? We don’t really know but I’m pretty sure that trust in the banking industry fell to a new low. Which is more or less where we came in!