Metadata: Polish Bank
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie
- Postal address:
- ul. Długa 7, 00-263 Warszawa
- Phone number:
- (22) 831-54-91
- Web address:
- www.agad.archiwa.gov.pl
- Email:
- sekretariat@agad.gov.pl
- Reference number:
- 1/ 221
- Title:
- Polish Bank
- Title (official language):
- Bank Polski
- Creator/accumulator:
- Bank Polski
- Date(s):
- 1828/1885
- Language:
- Polish
- Russian
- German
- French
- Extent:
- 8.5 linear metres (139 files)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection consists mainly of case records, commercial correspondence between the Bank of Poland and private banks and minutes of meetings of the management of the Bank of Poland from 1851, 1863-1864.
The records of the Bank Polski collection are an excellent source material for researchers of financial institutions in Europe in the 19th century. It primarily contains the correspondence of the Bank of Poland with the major Berlin banks of that time: Mendelssohn and Comp. from 1844-1885 (No. 25-58), F. Mart. Magnus from 1844-1979 (No. 59-117) and the national department store of Samuel Antoni Fraenkel, Jan and Józef Epstein from 1840-1854, 1875-1877 (No. 118-121).
Correspondence with Berlin banks primarily centred on matters related to trading in Russian securities sent from Berlin to Warsaw, bills of exchange issued to the Mendelssohn bank for payments to individuals and sending A and B vouchers to the Bank of Poland (in connection with the settlement system operated by this bank). There was also correspondence with the Magnus bank regarding treasury bonds, funds for the repayment of partial bonds, and the deposit of securities for redemption. Correspondence with the Fraenkel department store primarily concerns the subject of mortgage bond trading, mainly retrieving old bonds from the market and replacing them with new ones. An agreement has survived in which A. E. Fraenkel in 1843 undertook to provide the Bank of Poland with old mortgage bonds worth 20 million zlotys. Fraenkel also provided the Bank with shares and bonds - domestic and Russian, including shares of the Fabryczno-Łódzka Railroad, the Warsaw-Terespolska Railroad, the Moscow-Smolensk Railroad, the Main Russian Railroad Society; bonds of the Mikołajewska Railroad, the Great Society of Russian Railroads. The records also contain documents relating to Fraenkel's foreign activities - including correspondence with the Rotterdamsche Bank and the Rothschild brothers in Paris.
- Archival history:
- After the transformation of Bank of Poland into the Warsaw Exchange Bureau of the (Russian) State Bank in 1885, its records remained in the archives of the Exchange Bureau of the (Russian) State Bank. When Poland regained independence in 1924, the Bank of Poland was established and all the records were handed over to it. At the beginning of the 1930s, the records of the Bank of Poland were placed in the Archives of Historical Records and in 1936 they were included in the resources of the Treasury Archives. They were almost completely destroyed during World War II. Currently, the main core of the collection are documents returned from the Soviet Union in 1962.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Bank of Poland was established in 1828 by the decree of Emperor Nicholas I. Its main task was to service the public debt of the Duchy of Warsaw. The bank had the right to establish exchange offices abroad and to conclude transactions with foreign banks and department stores. The following departments operated in the Bank: Domestic Debt and Cash Register Department, Turnover Department, and the Accounting and Control Department. In 1829 the National Debt Relief Commission was established at the Bank. The Bank of Poland was supervised by the minister, and later by the director of the General Revenue and Treasury Commission. From the time of the November Uprising, the National Government handed over the Mint (lost to the treasury in 1832) to the management of the Bank, and from 1833 it supervised the mining industry in the Kingdom of Poland. After the fall of the January Uprising, from 1866 the scope of the bank's activities was gradually limited, transforming it from an issuing bank to a deposit bank. In June 1885, the Council of the Russian State resolved to transform the Bank of Poland into the Warsaw Exchange Bureau of the (Russian) State Bank.
The Mendelssohn bank, established in 1795, was founded by Joseph Mendelssohn, who ran it together with his brother Abraham (the father of the composer Felix Mendelssohn). From the mid-19th century, they were the bankers of the Russian emperor, dominating the European market of Russian treasury bonds. The bank operated until 1938. The F. Mart. Magnus bank, headed by Martin Friedrich Magnus, closed in 1872. The most famous bank in the Kingdom of Poland was owned by Samuel Antoni Fraenkel; after his death, it was taken over by his son Antoni Edward, who, together with Józef Epstein, carried out multi-million trading operations. The bank ceased operations in 1883. Józef Epstein and his brother Jan also had their own banks, which they sold to the Commerce Bank.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Epstein, Józef
- Fraenkel, Samuel Leopold Antoni (1773-1833)
- Finding aids:
-
D. Lewandowska, Bank Polski [Bank of Poland] [in:] Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie, Przewodnik po zasobie, vol. 2: Epoka porozbiorowa, ed. F. Ramotowska, Warszawa 1998, pp. 319-325;
J.N. Rembertowski, Bank Polski w okresie 50-letnim (1828-1878), Warszawa 1878.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Małgorzata Kośka, Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw, 2020