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The Chartered Bank Of India, Australia And China (The Chartered Bank), Ipoh
The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (more commonly known as The Chartered Bank) was founded in London in 1852 by James Wilson following the grant of a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria. It opened its first branches in 1858 in Calcutta and Bombay and then Shanghai. This was followed by Hong Kong in 1861 and Singapore in 1862. Expansion took place and in the early 1900s it started several more branches across Asia including the branch in Ipoh, at the corner of Station Road, (image above) in 1902. This was where the Perak Hydro/Tenaga Nasional building now stands. Its first bank in Perak was in Taiping.
The Chartered Bank provided credit to both the Straits Trading Company and the Eastern Smelting Company, two very important companies in the history of Malaysia and at one time it was authorised to print its own banknotes in Malaya. Firms such as Botly & Co., A.H. Whittaker & Co., Chartered Accountants, Evatt & Co. and Estate Visiting Agents Milne & Stevens also occupied the Bank Chambers. Then in 1924 the bank commissioned a three-storeyed, reinforced concrete building from the architects Booty Edwards and Partners. It was a fine architecture, on a new site in Station Road. It opened in 1925.
To see a video of the bank's history, click here
To read more about The Straits Trading Company, click here.
To read about the Eastern Smelting Company Branch Office in Papan, click here.
To read more about the book "Kinta Valley", click here.