Montagu Norman English banker Date of Birth: 06.09.1871 Country: Great Britain

Biography of Montagu Norman

Montagu Collet Norman, an English banker, was born on September 6, 1871, in Kensington, London, England. He was the eldest son of Frederick Henry Norman and Lina Susan Penelope Collet, the daughter of Sir Mark Wilks Collet, 1st Baronet, who also managed the Bank of England. The Norman family was well-known in banking circles, with Montagu's brother Ronald Collet Norman and nephew Mark Norman also becoming prominent bankers in the country. His great-nephew David Norman also had a successful career in the City and gained fame as an art patron.

Montagu studied at Eton, one of the most prestigious schools in England, and spent a year at King's College, Cambridge. After some time in Europe, he joined Martin's Bank in 1892, where his father was a partner. In 1894, he moved to Brown, Shipley & Co., where his maternal grandfather was a partner, and in 1895, he joined Brown Bros. & Co. in New York. In 1900, Montagu became a partner at Brown, Shipley & Co. before leaving for South Africa, where he served until 1915.

In 1894, Norman joined the 4th Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment and took part in the second Anglo-Boer War. In 1901, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his outstanding service. Norman assumed a directorship at the Bank of England in 1907 and served as a financial advisor to various government agencies during World War I. He was appointed deputy governor of the bank in 1917 and became its president in 1920.

Under Norman's leadership, the bank underwent significant changes. In 1931, the United Kingdom abandoned the gold standard, resulting in the transfer of the bank's foreign currency and gold reserves to the British Treasury. Norman was a close friend of Hjalmar Schacht, the president of the German Central Bank, and became the godfather to one of his grandchildren. Both of them were members of organizations such as the Anglo-German Fellowship, which existed from 1935 to 1939 and was accused of having ties to the Nazis, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Norman's exact role as a director of the BIS at the time, when £6 million of Czechoslovak gold held in the Bank of England was transferred to the German Reichsbank in 1939, is still being clarified.

In 1944, Norman resigned from the Bank of England and retired. He was granted a peerage as Baron Norman on October 13, 1944. In addition to the Distinguished Service Order and membership in the Privy Council, he was also a Grand Officer of the Belgian Order of the Crown. On November 2, 1933, Lord Norman, aged 62, married Priscilla Cecilia Maria Reyntiens, aged 34, for whom it was a second marriage. Her first marriage, which resulted in two stepsons for Norman, ended in 1929. Priscilla, who was the granddaughter of Montagu Bertie, 7th Earl of Abingdon, served in the London County Council and supported healthcare institutions.

Lord Norman passed away on February 4, 1950, at his home in London after suffering a stroke. As he had no children of his own, his baron title did not pass on to anyone.