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picture of East India Company building.
 
 
1858 - George Gilbert Scott appointed architect of new Foreign Office but Lord Palmerston objects to his Gothic design and an Italian Palladian style prevails. India Office created and occupies old East India House in Leadenhall Street in the City, and building in Victoria Street which later became the Westminster Palace Hotel.
  • 1867 - New India Office completed.

  • 1868 - Foreign Office moves in to new building.

  • 1875 - New Colonial and Home Offices completed and open for business.
  •  
  • 1880 - Sir Joseph Crowe, the First Commercial attach�, was assigned to the Paris Embassy.

  • 1902 - India Office Courtyard the scene of Coronation celebrations for King Edward VII, and renamed Durbar Court.

  • 1905-6 - Lansdowne reforms.

  • 1917 - Department of Overseas Trade formed.

  • 1919 - Commercial Diplomatic Service established within FO. Amalgamation of FO and Diplomatic Service.

  • 1925 - Dominions Office established, housed in the Colonial Office building. Foreign Office Reception Suite renamed the Locarno Suite following the signing of the Locarno Treaty in the largest of the three rooms.

  • 1934 - Economic Relations Section created within FO.

  • 1943 - Eden Reforms.

  • 1947 - Dominions Office became Commonwealth Relations Office. Colonial Office moves to Church House, Great Smith Street.

  • 1964 - Plowden Report on Representational Services Overseas. (Cmnd 2276)

  • 1965 - The present Diplomatic Service was formed from the merged Foreign, Commonwealth and Trade Commission Services.

  • 1966 - Colonial Office and Commonwealth Office merged, becoming Commonwealth Office, housed in Whitehall.

  • 1968 - The FCO established by the merger of the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office.

  • 1969 - Duncan Report (Cmnd 4107) recommended a reduction in the FCO's role.

  • 1976-7 - Review of the FCO by the Central Policy Review Staff.

  • 1978 - The United Kingdom's Overseas Representation (Cmnd 7038) published as the official response to this review. Foreign Office takes over newly vacated Home Office building.

  • 1981 - Ministerial decision to refurbish remainder of Scott's building (the Old Public Offices).

  • 1987 - Restoration of part of the India Office, including Durbar Court and the India Office Council Chamber completed.

  • 1990 - Additional areas of the India Office (including Muses Stair and Oval Room) restored, as well as a major part of the Foreign Office (including the Grand Staircase and the Secretary of State's Room).

  • 1997 - Completion of remaining restoration work.
  •  
     
    (note:  If you click the + button on the frames at the left of the map three times, you will see the number 10,000 in the box.  This shows 100 Leadenhall to be at the corner of Leadenhall and Lime.
     
    Lloyd's
    Address: One Lime Street London EC3M 7HA
    Tel: 0207 327 1000
    Fax: 0207 626 2389
    E-mail:
    Website: http://www.lloydsoflondon.com
     
    Lloyd's Register of Shipping - LR
    Address: 71 Fenchurch Street London EC3M 4BS
    Tel: 020 7709 9166
    Fax: 020 7488 4796
    E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
    Website: http://www.lr.org
  • London Clearing House Limited The - LCH
    Address: Aldgate House 33 Aldgate High Street London EC3N 1EA
    Tel: 020 7426 7000
    Fax: 020 7426 7001
    E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
    Website: http://www.lch.com
    London Metal Exchange - LME
    Address: 56 Leadenhall Street London EC3A 2DX
    Tel: 020 7264 5555
    Fax: 020 7264 5541
    E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
    Website: http://www.lme.co.uk

    http://www.factset.com/files/Maps/London%20Colmap.pdf
     
     
    Leadenhall Street is noted for its shipping companies. At the corner of Lime Street, opposite the modern P & O building is the former Royal Mail House, built in 1929-30 just before the famous Royal Mail case (R. v. KylsantJj) of 1931. It stands, as a plaque indicates, on the site of East India House where John Carpenter, author of A Most Excellent Instruction (1632) worked as an accountant.
     

    [BOWEN (Thomas)]: [MAP OF LIME STREET WARD] LIMESTREET WARD DIVIDED INTO PARISHES ACCORDING TO A LATE SURVEY.

    London: Robert Baldwin 1772. A fine antique map of Lime Street Ward in the heart of the City of London. The area covered extends north from Fenchurch Street across Leadenhall Street and via St Mary Axe to Camomile Street and Houndsditch. It includes the old Leadenhall Market, East India House (on the site of the modern Lloyd's Building) and the churches of St Andrew Undershaft and Great St Helen. The map is decorated with a rococo cartouche, the arms of the contemporary alderman Sir Robert Kite, and an elevation of the front of the Leaden Hall. Originally produced for the "London Magazine" in 1771, the present (slightly altered) version of the map was utilised in John Noorthouck's part-work "A new history of London including Westminster and Southwark" (London 1772-1773). Other maps in this series were engraved by Thomas Bowen (fl.1749-1790) and this would also appear to be his work.
    Copper line engraving on paper. Later hand colour. Engraved surface 170 x 220mm (approx. 6-3/4" x 8-3/4"). Some offsetting, but otherwise in very good state. A guaranteed genuine antique map. Adams 51/024. Hyde (Ward Maps) 90/2.

    4/78-5/83 Finance Manager, Bank of Credit and Commerce S.A.
    (100 Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 3AD). Initially Project Finance Manager in the Merchant Banking Division, where I had responsibility for locating and negotiating medium and long-term investments of Merchant Banking Division in virtually every sector in various parts of the world. Later adviser tothe directors on financial evaluation, marketing and organizational subjects. An Aviser to BCCI Pension Fund. ***
     
    5/70-3/78 Investment Manager, Commonwealth Development Finance Company
    (CDFC) (Colechurch House, 1 London Bridge Walk, London SE1 2SS; now taken over by Ensign Trust). Concerned with the identification, negotiation, investigation and supervision of varoius projects in agricultural, industrial, property and tourist sectors in Africa, the Caribbean, the mediterranean, Brazil, the Far East and the U.K. Also a member of a two man team involved in locating and correcting operating problems in our investee companies. Past Directorship (representing CDFC): Anglo International Hotels Ltd.; Nigerian Industrial Development Bank Ltd.; Nigerian Sugar Co. Ltd.; Guma Valley Water Co. Ltd.; Flour Mills of Fiji Ltd.; R.C. Baxter Ltd. (Canada); SB Capital Corporation Ltd. (Canada).
    9/68-5/70 The British Petroleum Co. Ltd. Development Department, Britannic House. Co-Ordinator in Supply and Development Department, which involved supplying information for the company's linear programme and ensuring that refineries were aware of product demands and received the required inputs. Plants Chemist on the BP refinery, Isle of Grain, Kent - process liaison and plant development work, (September 1964 - February 1966).
     
    Lloyd's Register of Shipping 
    Marine Division 
     
    100 Leadenhall Street 
    EC3A 3BP 
    London 
    UK 
     
     
    As one Bank of England official wrote in an internal memorandum:

    1. After spending one week in BCCI, I am absolutely certain that the real head office is located on six floors of 100 Leadenhall Street. It is here that Abedi, Naqvi, Twitchin, Farqui et al work 12 hours a day managing assets of $15bn. . . . .

    2. It is clear that Luxembourg is an historic chapter in the BCCI story and that Grand Cayman is a tax haven used as a booking centre. The Bank of England are effectively the prime supervisors of BCCI, not the IML [the Luxembourg Monetary Institute]. UK incorporation of the UK branch network followed by recognition must be traded with Abedi in exchange for the movement out of Leadenhall Street of the Central Support Organisation.(62)

    From this memorandum, it appears that not until the end of 1985 did the Bank of England even understand that BCCI's headquarters was located in London. When it did, its first reaction was not to decide to upgrade its regulation of BCCI, but to consider trading upgraded status for BCCI's deposit taking in the UK in exchange for BCCI's agreement to move its headquarters out of the UK to the Bank of England would not have to regulate it.

    In this same period, the Bank of England learned of BCCI's huge Treasury losses, which had nearly wiped out BCCI's capital, and did not object when BCCI moved its Treasury operations out of London to Abu Dhabi.

    62. Extract, Paragraph 144, Report, Inquiry into the Supervision of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, The Right Honorable Lord Justice Bingham, July 27, 1992, hereafter, "Bingham Report." ...

    By the end of 1989, the college regulators were placing increasing pressure on BCCI to reform, in concert with Price Waterhouse. In early 1990, Price Waterhouse informed the Bank of England that it now was confident that top BCCI officials had provided false information to it, and that there was fraud at BCCI, in an amount that was yet to be determined. The problem that the college regulators and the auditors had been slowly trying to come to grips with over the previous three years had accelerated, and action had to be taken.

    The April 1990 Price Waterhouse Report

    On April 18, 1990, Price Waterhouse provided a report to the Bank of England which stated that a number of financial transactions at BCCI booked in its Grand Caymans affiliates and other offshore banks were "false and deceitful," and that it was impossible at the present time to determine just how far the fraud reached. Thus, a critical decision had to be made. Either BCCI had to be closed down now, or the Bank of England itself had to give its assent to keeping it open in some new form as a means of avoiding losses to BCCI's million or more depositors. New management needed to be installed. New financing had to be found, and the holes in BCCI's books had to be plugged.

    The obvious solution was to ask Sheikh Zayed and the government of Abu Dhabi to take over the bank. As Zayed and the Al Nayhan family who ruled Abu Dhabi had been major depositors of BCCI, and had long had billions in family finances handled by BCCI, they stood to lose as much as anyone if the bank collapsed. Accordingly, Abu Dhabi would have to be told the truth about BCCI's perilous condition, and asked to commit funds to keeping the bank solvent.

    A series of urgent meetings were held in Abu Dhabi and Luxembourg, beginning in March, 1990, in which Naqvi confessed his errors and resigned from his position as CEO at BCCI. Abu Dhabi agreed to provide a $1.2 billion cash infusion to BCCI, and to guarantee its losses. Naqvi was removed to Abu Dhabi, and a new management team was brought in. Best of all, from the point of view of the Bank of England, Abu Dhabi and BCCI had agreed to remove BCCI from its headquarters in London, a goal that the Bank of England had been seeking for years.

    Rather than increase its jurisdiction over BCCI at this critical time, the Bank of England was increasingly anxious to make it someone else's problem. Abu Dhabi seemed only too glad to comply, and accordingly, the Bank of England gave its blessing to the removal not only of BCCI's headquarters, but its officers, and most importantly, all of its records, from British jurisdiction to that of Abu Dhabi.

    At the same time, the Bank of England met with Price Waterhouse, which wanted to know the Bank of England's position concerning whether or not it should once again sign off on BCCI's books, despite the fraud which now the Bank of England, the Luxembourg regulators, and Abu Dhabi knew about in addition to Price Waterhouse and BCCI. The Bank of England and the Institut Monetaire Luxembourgeois, informed of what the auditors termed "all the uncertainties known to Price Waterhouse and of the financial support commitment by the Government of Abu Dhabi," agreed that BCCI could continue to operate, and Price Waterhouse duly signed off on BCCI's books.(68)

    By agreement, the Bank of England had in effect entered into a plan with BCCI, Abu Dhabi and Price Waterhouse in which they would each keep the true state of affairs at BCCI secret in return for cooperation with one another in trying to restructure the bank to avoid a catastrophic multi-billion dollar collapse. From April 1990 forward, the Bank of England had now inadvertently become partner to a cover-up of BCCI's criminality. The goal was not to ignore BCCI's wrongdoing, but to prevent its disclosure, for that in turn could cause a massive run on the bank, BCCI's collapse, and potential billions in losses.

    As the Governor of the Bank of England, Robin Leigh-Pemberton, testified before the House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee:

    On receipt of both the [Price Waterhouse] report of April 1990 and October 1990 we were alerted to [fraud and deceit], but those phrases described what I call the state of evidence, namely there was an indication that certainly things were not well. Some transactions had been either false or deceitful . . . but our view was that even if this added up to individual acts of fraudulent conduct it did not give evidence of a system of fraud throughout the Bank which was wide enough to justify closure. I hope it does not shock you too much, it is only a matter of realism that we do have occasions of fraud in banks. . . if we close down a bank every time we find an individual act or two of fraud we would have rather fewer banks than we do at the moment.(69)

    Moreover, according to the Governor of the Bank of England, the moment the decision was made by the Bank that it would try to keep BCCI open rather than close it, it became essential to do everything possible to avoid contributing to its demise:

    It is impossible for us to give what one might call an advance warning or a health warning. A hint from the Bank of England that somebody on our list may not be quite pukka would be the kiss of death to the future of a bank. We are in the difficult position that our banks are either on the list or they are struck off. I am sorry to say we have to leave it people to make their best judgment as to whether any one of those institutions is or is not fit to be a depository for the purpose they want.(70)

    In short, depositors in the United Kingdom should regard their choice of banking institutions, according to the Governor of the Bank of England, by the ancient Latin maxim, "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware, and should not rely on the regulators to provide them with the facts. BCCI had become a bank too big to fail. In the effort to avoid that failure, the Bank of England was in no position to tell anyone the truth about its difficulties until it was too late for them to protect themselves.

    Thus, unfortunately, rather than permitting ordinary depositors to find out for themselves the true state of BCCI's finances, the Bank of England, Price Waterhouse, Abu Dhabi and BCCI found themselves in collusion to deprive the public of the information necessary for them to reach any reasonable judgment on the matter, because the alternative would have been an immediate collapse of the bank.

    And in a note of a meeting of Bank officials dated 17 December 1985 after a team from the Bank had visited the BCCI offices in Leadenhall Street the following comment by an official is noted:
     
      "There is no doubt in my mind that BCCI has centralised its management, control and operations in the City. This is a UK-based bank, with its White House encompassing two buildings fronting Leadenhall Street and three at the rear. There is absolutely no way that we should continue the pretence that Luxembourg are the prime supervisors. Luxembourg is prehistoric; Grand Cayman is a tax haven; and it is the Bank of England who are the lender of last resort. If UK incorporation of the UK branch network means the movement of the Treasury Support Organisation from London to Abu Dhabi, the Bank must encourage Abedi all the way. This surely is the only route to effective supervision."

      http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/LONboard.htm

        The Board of Trade consists of a committee of the privy council, composed of all the great officers of state. The business is principally conducted by the president, deputy president, and the chief of the clerks. It is, properly speaking, a board of reference, to which all difficult or doubtful cases relative to trade or our colonial possessions, exclusive of the East Indies, are referred. The apartments which are occupied by this Board of Trade, are in the northern part of the old building called the Treasury, in Whitehall.
    The East India Company was established in 1600 to challenge the Dutch-Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade. Queen Elizabeth granted the company monopoly rights to bring goods from India. With the approval of local Indian rulers, the East India Company established trading posts in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The company was now trading in cottons, silks, indigo, saltpeter and tea.

    The East India Company had a monopoly of this trade until 1694 when the House of Commons passed an act that enabled all British firms to trade with India. The East India Company retained its dominant position and continued to make large profits from India and
    by 1720, 15% of Britain's imports came from India.

    The international headquarters for the company was established at East India House in Leadenhall Street. James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill, both worked for the company and eventually both became head of the office at East India House.

    The British government became concerned with the power of the East India Company and in 1783
    Charles Fox attempted to persuade Parliament to pass a bill that would replace the company's directors with a board of commissioners. George III made it known to the House of Lords that he would consider anyone voting with the Bill an enemy.

    The following year, the new Prime Minister,
    William Pitt convinced George III and Parliament to accept a new India Bill. This measure created a new Board of Trade and helped to transfer the political, financial and military power of the East India Company to the British government. The East India Company now found it difficult to make a profit from its activities and in 1834 ceased trading and instead acted as a managing agency for the government. The company finally came to an end in 1873 and Lloyds took over East India House.
     
     
     
     
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