Bank House was acquired by Samuel Stuckey in 1741 for his trading business. His banking activities arose out of his clients’ need to store their money somewhere safe, and by the end of the century Stuckey’s Bank was flourishing from this building. Now called Bank House, Walter Bagehot was born in the flat over the bank in 1826, his father, Thomas Watson Bagehot, being the bank’s manager at the time.
The newer building at the western end was built in 1875 and was the Bank’s headquarters until their HQ moved to Taunton in 1908. It remained in operation as a bank until the branch closed in 2017.
Stuckey’s became a joint stock bank in 1826, and its business and reputation grew under the expert management of Vincent Stuckey (see his entry in the People section here) until, at his death in 1845, its banknotes had a circulation second only to the Bank of England’s. Stuckey’s Bank was taken over by Parr’s in 1909, and eventually became part of the NatWest Bank.
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