Commercial Overprint Society of Great Britain

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Vol. 1 No. 6; December 1, 2003

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Lloyds Bank

by Michael Behm and Jeffrey Turnbull

According to the Lloyds Bank webpage, "Lloyds Bank [began] in 1765, when John Taylor and Sampson Lloyd set up a private banking business in Birmingham, England. Two sons of the original partners followed in their footsteps by establishing a bank—Barnetts Hoares Hanbury and Lloyd—in London’s Lombard Street. Eventually, this became absorbed into the Lloyds Banking Company."

In terms of their philatelic history, we know that Lloyds Bank used commercial overprints at least as early as SG. #370, which was issued in 1921. Other Lloyds overprints are known up to SG. #727, so there is every reason to believe that Lloyds used commercial overprints until 1971.

The question is, how did Lloyds use commercial overprints between the time of their founding and the 1920s?

Jeffrey Turnbull has an example of a Lloyd's receipt from 1894:


(Click to see a larger version (85KB)).

The curious aspect of this is the overprint on the stamp:
S. L. & Co. Is this possibly related to the name of the founder of Lloyds—Sampson Lloyd?

If you have ideas or material that could shed some light on this question, contact me at mjbehm@kw.igs.net.

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Send comments or questions to mjbehm@kw.igs.net