Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, Shanghai : pass book belonging to T. Rorison, 1914-17.

[Shanghai : Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, c.1914]. Account holder’s pass book, 155 x 110 mm, original blue linen over stiff card with flap at rear; front with label inscribed with the owner’s name in ms. ‘T. Rorison, [M?]. E. Institute’; front pastedown with printed bank regulations including ‘Accounts will be kept either in Mexican Dollars or Taels, at the option of the Depositor’, and ‘Not more than $1200 will be received during one year from any single Depositor, whose Credit Balance shall not at any time exceed the sum of $5000’; interest was paid at the rate of 3.5% per annum; the pass book was in use for three years during the First World War period and contains almost 30 clerical entries for deposits and withdrawals made by Mr. Rorison dating from December 1914 to November 1917.

The Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (today known as the HSBC) was founded in 1864 with its Head Office in Hong Kong. It opened its Shanghai branch in 1865, and moved into a new building, designed by the architect William Kidner, in 1875. The present Shanghai office was completed in 1923.