Banking & finance

Long description:

Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.

In-depth oral history interviews, recorded between 1987 and 2000, which explore changes in the corporate worlds of Britain’s banking and finance industries in the second half of the twentieth century. Interviews in this collection explore the inner world of Britain’s financial capital and include representatives from the Stock Exchange, the merchant and clearing banks, the commodities and future markets, law and accounting firms, financial regulators, insurance companies and Lloyd’s of London.

Oral history recordings provide valuable first-hand testimony of the past.  The views and opinions expressed in oral history interviews are those of the interviewees, who describe events from their own perspective.  The interviews are historical documents and their language, tone and content might in some cases reflect attitudes that could cause offence in today’s society.

The first City Lives recordings (catalogue no. C409) were made in 1988, in time to capture a substantial body of memories of the days when London’s financial sector was concentrated in the Square Mile and British family banking dynasties conducted business in a manner handed down from the previous century. By the time the project ended in 2000, the effects of Big Bang and the geographical pull of Canary Wharf had changed the landscape completely, some of the great names had vanished – Barings Bank being only one of them – and the shift to screen-based trading had swept away traditional working methods and relationships. City Lives documents personal accounts and pivotal moments, among them the British Aluminium Battle, the arrival of women traders at the Stock Exchange, the privatisation of British Telecom, the 1987 Crash, the creation of LIFFE and the rise in power of the American banks in London. Inadvertently, the project caught the zeitgeist of the City before 9/11, an atmosphere that, even at this short distance, seems unlikely ever to return.

The British Library oral history collections include many other interviews related to banking and finance including The Jobbing System of the London Stock Exchange: An Oral History (C463), An Oral History of Barings (C1367), the Kynaston London International Financial Futures & Options Exchange (LIFFE) Interviews (catalogue no: C1053) and the Kynaston Phillips & Drew Interviews (catalogue no: C1054). Further information can be found on the Oral History collections pages.

What the interviews tell us

One-to-one oral history interviews explore memories and narratives rarely found elsewhere. First-hand personal testimony fills knowledge gaps, provides new insights, challenges stereotypical views, and overturns orthodoxies. These recordings reveal collective memory, individual agency, gender, skill, influence and intentionality. Shifting family, work, health and educational trends and debates emerge alongside the impact of changing technologies, belief structures and political contexts. Oral history recordings provide valuable first-hand testimony of the past.  The views and opinions expressed in oral history interviews are those of the interviewees, who describe events from their own perspective.  The interviews are historical documents and their language, tone and content might in some cases reflect attitudes that could cause offence in today’s society.

Ethical use of oral historyThe interviewees have been generous in sharing their memories - often traumatic, confidential and intimate - and listeners are asked to treat this material with respect and sensitivity. Recordings should be analysed and presented in context, so that the interviewee’s meaning is not misconstrued. Quotations and audio clips should be referenced as, for example: “Interview with Kenneth Kleinwort by Cathy Courtney, February – June 1990, City Lives, reference C409/035 part x, © The British Library”.

Each interviewee whose recording appears on this site has assigned copyright to The British Library Board and given their consent for the recording to be used for educational study. We have made every effort to contact all the interviewees and inform them about this project. However should any participant wish to discuss their involvement they should contact the Lead Curator, Oral History at the British Library (oralhistory@bl.uk)

Oral history at the British Library

The interviews on this site are a small selection from the many thousands held in the Oral History section of the British Library. These recordings go back over 100 years and cover many facets of life in Britain.

Many interviews were gathered through National Life Stories, an externally-funded unit within the Library established in 1987 to “record first-hand experiences of as wide a cross-section of present-day society as possible”.

All recordings on this site are governed by licence agreements.