Financial History | Earliest known cheque, drawn of Clayton and Morris, 1659

History of Finance

The earliest known cheque--Clayton and Morris, bankers

signed by Nicholas Vanacker, instructing the bank to "Pray pay this bearer Tenn pounds", London, 22 April 1659, subscribed on receipt ("Received then the Contents of this note being ten pounds I say for My master Abra[ham] Sayon per John de Laet", docketed on the verso ("Mr Vanackers order for 10l. 1659"), paper slip (c.85 x 200mm.)

THE EARLIEST KNOWN CHEQUE. Although financial instruments such as bills of exchange had been issued for centuries, primarily to facilitate international trade, the cheque was invented in England in the mid-seventeenth century. These handwritten cheques allowed an individual to draw on their own funds held in a bank account in order to make an immediate payment to a third party.

The earliest known cheques were all issued by the company founded by Robert Clayton (1629-1707) and John Morris (1625-82). Morris and Clayton, who went into business together in 1658, were also the first bankers to use the mortgage as a long-term security for loans. As a result of this innovative practice the company became for forty years the largest lender to landowners in England, especially the dominant Whig aristocracy.

The Royal Bank of Scotland archive includes a Clayton and Morris cheque dated 16 February 1659, but given the convention of dating the new year from Lady Day (25 March), that cheque is from 1660 by modern dating, so is some ten months later than the current example. The earliest cheque in the collection of the Bank of England dates from 8 December 1660. No earlier cheque is cited by J. Milnes-Holden, The History of Negotiable Instruments in English Law (1955), or was recorded in the Chartered Accountants Exhibition Taste of Money: The History of Banking in the City of London (July 1972). A group of three other cheques by Vanacker, including one dated 10 March 1659/60, was sold at auction five years ago (Bonhams, London, 1 March 2017, lot 18). The current example is the earliest of a group of three cheques written by the London merchant John Vanacker, which were sold in these rooms in 1976. The later two were resold, also in these rooms, ten years later.

PROVENANCE:

"Clayton MSS" (stamp on verso); Sotheby's, London, 14 December 1976, lot 39 (part lot)