On This Day: Bank of Montreal opens, 1817

The Montreal Bank, later renamed the Bank of Montreal, opened its doors on St. Paul Street in Montreal on Nov. 3, 1817, according to BMO’s own newsroom. It is now Canada’s oldest bank, and it opened 209 years ago today.

BMO said in a 2011 release that nine Montreal businessmen invested to found the institution. Canadian Coin News reported that the merchants, including prominent businessman John Richardson, had signed articles of association earlier that year, on June 23. Another account, from Province Quebec, described the bank as operating from a rented house at 32 St. Paul Street and said Richardson, a fur trader, led the effort.

The sources do not agree on every detail. BMO put the starting capital at $150,000, while Canadian Coin News and Province Quebec gave it as 250,000 pounds. Province Quebec also called the new institution the New Bank of Montreal, while the other sources used the name Montreal Bank. None of the three sources gave a different opening day, and all agreed on Nov. 3, 1817. The Canadian Encyclopedia confirms the 1817 founding but does not give the day.

The bank arrived in a colony with little formal banking. Province Quebec said the project was the culmination of 25 years of lobbying, and that paper notes issued during the War of 1812 had helped build the case for a bank that could take deposits, discount commercial paper and issue its own money.

Within a year the bank was building a network. The Canadian Encyclopedia said that in 1818 it worked through business associations with banks in London, New York and Boston, and had offices in Quebec City and Kingston. Canadian Coin News listed additional offices at York, Queenston and Amherstburg, a difference between sources that likely reflects how each defined an office or agency.

In 1822 the bank converted from a private company owned by a few people into a public company with 144 shareholders, the Canadian Encyclopedia said. That is when it became officially known as the Bank of Montreal.

Its influence grew with the country. The Canadian Encyclopedia said the bank became official banker for the government of Lower Canada and, in 1864, for the Province of Canada. It added that from its founding until the Bank of Canada was created in 1935, the Bank of Montreal served as Canada’s central bank, and that the bank was the main source of financing for the Canadian Pacific Railway as the line was built in the 1880s. BMO has said it issued the first Canadian currency until 1935.

The bank also pushed west with the railway. The Canadian Encyclopedia listed branches in Winnipeg in 1877, Calgary in 1886 and Vancouver in 1887. It said the first permanent branch in New York opened in 1859 and a London branch followed in 1870.

The legacy is visible in Montreal today. The bank’s head office still faces the Place d’Armes square in Old Montreal, across from Notre-Dame Basilica, and the institution remains one of Canada’s largest banks, more than two centuries after a few merchants opened a single office on St. Paul Street.

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