Bank served town for almost 200 years
The Kentish Bank had many names.
It was a private bank founded in 1818 by Philip Corral, a hop grower, Edward Homewood, a JP, and John Mercer, a miller.
It was known as Corral, Homewood & Mercer. When Homewood died in 1820, it became just Corral & Mercer.
It survived the great banking crash of 1825, thanks to the help of fellow town merchants, and found itself then the only bank still standing in Maidstone.
It then began trading first as Maidstone Bank, and later as the New Kentish Bank, issuing its own bank notes, which are in hot demand with collectors today.
The name Kentish Bank had earlier been associated with another bank in the town, established in 1793, which operated until 1820.
In 1838 a former bank clerk, Alexander Randall, was admitted to the partnership, which became Corral, Mercer & Randall. Then Corral died in 1840 and John Mercer’s son, confusingly also known as John, was admitted to the partnership, making it Mercer, Randall & Mercer.
In the early 1850s, Mercer’s second son Charles was admitted, and the firm became Mercer, Randall, Mercer & Mercer.
John Mercer senior died in 1855, John Mercer junior in 1857 and Charles Mercer in 1861. They were replaced by Lewis Davis Wigan in 1856; Henry Tasker in 1861; Richard Mercer in 1856 and his brother Samuel Mercer in 1860. In 1868 Charles Mercer’s son William Frederick Mercer also joined the partnership. After Randall’s death in 1870, the partnership was called Wigan, Mercers, Tasker & Co. It was then taken over in 1903 by the Union of London & Smiths Bank Ltd, who were in turn taken over by the National Provincial Bank, then by National Westminster. The bank was finally styled NatWest, before its closure and conversion into the Brenchley pub in 2013.