Currency Department Calcutta
Francis Firth (1822 - 1898)

THE CURRENCY OFFICE.
The site of this was once occupied by a concern called the Calcutta Auction Company, started, I believe, in competition with the well-known and old-established firm of Mackenzie Lyall & Co. It was a huge barn of a place stretching away from Dalhousie Square to Mission Row, filled from one end to the other with a medley of all sorts of goods and chattels which had been sent in for sale from time to time by various people. The office accommodation was also of the most primitive order, and consisted merely of a slightly raised wooden platform on which were perched a couple of desks and a few chairs. They had never held at any period a position of standing or importance in the commercial world, and some time after my arrival there were unpleasant rumours floating abroad about them, and I recollect shortly before their final collapse the manager's chair was occupied by the founder of one of the most influential and leading firms of the present day. When it disappeared the ground was acquired by the Agra Bank which erected the present very handsome buildings, shortly after, as far as I remember, it amalgamated with the Masterman Banking Concern in London, and it was subsequently known as Agra and Mastermans Bank.

The office formerly was where Gladstone Wyllie & Co. are now. The amalgamation, I think, did not prove so successful as was anticipated, and eventually Mastermans dropped out of the concern and the bank assumed its old title, and though it was in a sound enough position even up to the date of its liquidation, the management considered it prudent to draw in its horns a little and sold to Government for the office of the currency department the larger part facing Dalhousie Square. It then retired to the back part of the premises looking on to Mission Row, which became the entrance to the bank. As time went on the bank seemed in some way or another to dwindle in standing and importance, and it did not tend to increase either its reputation or popularity when it issued a notice to the effect that in future no exchange brokers need trouble to call as it had appointed its own individual broker (Mr. Chapman) to do all the work. The bank continued to carry on in this manner for a number of years until one day it was announced that it was going into liquidation, for what reason no one ever seemed to know. I believe the liquidation proved eminently satisfactory and the shareholder reaped a handsome return on their holdings, but it seemed a thousand pities that, after the bank had so successfully ridden out the awful financial storm of 1886, when banks and institutions of all sorts and conditions, and of much higher standing and position, went clashing down by the dozen like so many nine-pins, the management without any apparent reason should close down for ever one of the oldest banking institutions of the city.

Source:
Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century
by Montague Massey

Image source: V&A, London