IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARIES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12256, 20 February 1937, Page 2

IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARIES

17 YEARS AGO TO-DAY ■ COOKING FIGURES A memorable anniversary is this in business and circles, for it recalls one of tho?e major frauds which have been a feature of post-war days. It was one of the first, a sort of prelude to the Hatty, and other monetary earthquakes, which have shattered credit on both sides of the Atlantic. To-day In 1920 the doors ot Farrow’s Bank were closed. It was scarcely credited in the City. A British joint stock concern founded in 1907 with a capital of a million pounds, the bank was believed to he “as sate as house?.” It had 7 5 branches mostly in England though a few were in Scotland, and Thomas Farrow had had it registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act. Deposits had reached £4,000,000 when payment was suspended, as to-day 16 years ago, and the failure resulted in widespread suffering among small depositors, and did much to unbalance confidence in financial circles. Subsequent Investigation proved that for upwards of nine years there had been an annual trading loss of about a million pounds and that the figures had been arranged so as to show a profit of about the same amount. Farrow, a director, and an auditor were tried in the Central Criminal Court in 1921, two of them receiving four years penal servitude, and one twelve months’ imprisonment.