Coutts

Coutts & Company (/ˈkuːts/) is a British private bank and wealth manager headquartered in London, England.

Founded in 1692, it is the eighth oldest bank in the world. Today, Coutts forms part of NatWest Group's wealth management division. In the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, Coutts Crown Dependencies operates as a trading name of The Royal Bank of Scotland International Limited. In 2021, Coutts achieved B-Corp status, becoming only the third UK bank to achieve the certification.

In 1692, a young Scots goldsmith-banker named John Campbell of Lundie, Scotland, formed the bank originally as a goldsmith-banker's shop. Lundie opened the new business in the Strand, London, under a sign of the Three Crowns, as was customary in the days before street numbers. Today, the Coutts logo still has the three crowns, and its headquarters is still on the Strand.

Campbell died in 1712, leaving the business to members of his family. The dominant force was Campbell's son in law, George Middleton, who had become Campbell's partner in 1708. During Middleton's stewardship, the bank was buffeted by one crisis after another. The Jacobite rising of 1715 threatened the stability of the banking system; and John Law, the Comptroller of France's finances, owed a great deal of money to the bank when the Mississippi Company bubble burst in 1720 and the English stock market collapsed in the same year. Stability for the bank did not return until 1735. John's son, George Campbell was also a partner, and ultimately became the sole partner after the death of Middleton in 1747, after which the bank was renamed the "Bankers of 59 Strand".

In 1755, John Campbell's granddaughter, Mary (known as "Polly"), married a merchant and banker, James Coutts. Polly was George Campbell's niece and George immediately made James a partner. The bank became known as Campbell & Coutts, with James running the business and becoming sole partner following Polly's and George's deaths in 1760. George bequeathed most of his fortune, and the bank, to James.

In 1761 James took his brother Thomas Coutts into the business, which was now named James and Thomas Coutts.

James and Thomas did not always get on and eventually James drifted into politics, leaving the running of the bank to Thomas. James retired from the bank in 1775 due to ill health. The bank in the Strand became known as Thomas Coutts & Co.

The bank flourished under the lead of Thomas, who took in three partners: Sir Edmund Antrobus (1st Baronet), Edward Marjoribanks and Coutts Trotter. In the final decade of the 18th century, the premises at 59 Strand were significantly extended, and profits rose from £9,700 in 1775 to £72,000 in 1821. Edmund Antrobus, who started at Coutts as a clerk, was taken into partnership in 1777.