Place Name
Francis Ravenscroft (1829 – 1902) was an heir of the wig and tailoring company Ede & Ravenscroft, founded in 1689, and thought to be the oldest firm of tailors in the world. The company, originally based around today’s Aldwych, grew to become a favourite at court providing clothing and wigs to the royal household and the legal profession. It was from this fortune that the Ravenscrofts were able to found their own bank in 1851. Francis who was an astute businessman in his own right, had attended the London Mechanics’ Institute, part of Birkbeck College, which had been founded by Dr George Birkbeck (1776 – 1841) a physician and a pioneer of adult education. The family, themselves no strangers to philanthropy, so admired Birkbeck’s principles that they named their new enterprise Birkbeck Bank and the Birkbeck Building Society. Francis took over the running of the business aged 22 when his father Humphrey died. The young man continued to perpetuate his father’s ideals, namely by encouraging education and helping others to further themselves, as a result they helped to finance much of the 19thCentury residential development across Greater London through the Birkbeck Freehold Land Society. By 1903 the bank, now based at Southampton Buildings, in Chancery Lane, and managed by Francis’s son Clarence Ravenscroft, was boasting that it had: “Invested funds, ten millions.” In 1911 the firm was taken over by Westminster Bank. Several streets financed by the bank remember both the bank and its inspiration and the Ravenscroft family.
