Alexander Collie
Alexander Collie was born in Aberdeen in 1823, the son of a merchant. He started business in Manchester c.1850 importing cotton and exporting cotton textiles, and by 1863 he had established a warehouse in London. His brother William joined him, running the Manchester part of the business, while Alexander concentrated on the London side of the enterprise. Alexander Collie has been described as 'a charlatan even by the standards of some of the men masquerading as respectable in the financial houses of Victorian London.' [1]
In the mid 1870s Collie was living 12 Kensington Palace Gardens when he was charged with fraudulently obtaining £200,000 by false pretences using fraudulent ‘bills of exchange’. Over £1.5m that Collie’s bills promised would be paid was, in fact, non-existent. Collie absconded and disappeared for several years.[2]
1895 'DEATH OF ALEXANDER COLLIE. In the Times of yesterday appeared the following announcement:— "Collie.— On the 23rd November, in New York, Alexander Collie, late of 12, Kensington Palace Gardens." This recalls a time of great excitement twenty years ago, when the name of "Alexander Collie, 12, Kensington Gardens," was called out in vain at Guildhall, and the two friends who had been bail for him lost their four thousand pounds.
'Alexander Collie carried on, with his brother William, under the name of Alexander Collie and Co., a merchant's business in Manchester and Leadenhall-stieet, London. The failure of this firm, with liabilities estimated at three millions, caused great consternation about the middle of June, 1875. As a consequence of their failure, firm after firm had to suspend payment. One had nominal liabilities amounting two and a half millions. The extent of the commercial disaster for which the Collies were responsible is indicated by the fact that a money article in the Daily News opened with a congratulation on the rather better feeling in the money market, because on that particular morning "only one additional failure arising out of Messrs. Collie's " had to be announced. The leading joint stock banks had to diminish their half-yearly dividends, and the Bankruptcy Court rang for months with the name of Collie and Co.
'On the 21st of July, in the same year, the partners in the firm were brought up at the Guildhall Police Court charged with having obtained large sums of money from the London and Westminster Bank by means of false pretences. They were accused of drawing bills for value received — bills bearing marks and numbers which gave the impression that they referred to numbered bales of cotton and ledger accounts — when in reality they were only accommodation bills. The bills were put into circulation through bill brokers, and at the date of the Collie failure the nominal value of this paper afloat was put at one and three-quarter millions. The London and Westminster Bank, which instituted the prosecution, had discounted about half a million pounds' worth of those bills on the faith of the marks and numbers apparently testifying to bona fide business transactions, and in the conviction that the bills bore the names of responsible drawers and acceptors. The accountants who examined the books, however, reported that there were no such goods sold as the bills indicated, no such accounts in the ledger, and no goods acounts between the acceptors and the prisoners. Goods to the extent of some £63,000 and £100,000 were all that represented the million and a half or midion three-quarters for which bills were in the hands of the bank and other firms.
'The history of one set of bills, as elucidated before the case was stopped by Alexander Collie's disappearance, is worth reproducing. Collie and Co. purchased cotton in February, 1873, on a joint account with another firm - Rainbow, Holberton, and Co. The cotton was to be sold whenever that could be done at a profit. The markets proved adverse and the cotton was held — so at least Mr. Rainbow believed — and the bills given for it originally were renewed from time to time. No bills were accepted by Rainbow, except for this cotton. Asked whether he had reason to doubt that there was cotton purchased in the first instance, Mr. Rainbow said, "None whatever." From time to time, as bills were renewed, he inquired of Alexander Collie respecting the cotton, and was told that it was a bad time to sell, but that an advance might soon be expected. In further cross-examination Mr. Rainbow said, "On the of June last I saw Mr. Alexander Collie at his office in Leadenhall-street. I inquired the state of the cotton market, and urged that our joint account transactions should be closed. I said that I wished the cotton realised immediately, and he promised that it should be realised within the month of June." On the following day the Collies suspended payment, and on the day after that Rainbow, Holberton, and Co. did the same. On the 18th, having in the meantime received important information, Mr. Rainbow went to Alexander Collie and told him that he was himself going down to Liverpool to look after that cotton. Alexander Collie tried hard to persuade him not do so, and at last said Mr. Rainbow, "Mr. Alexander Collie informed me that something very wrong had been done. He said that our cotton had been sold, and replaced, and sold again ; that the accounts had got mingled, and that all trace of our interest in the cotton had been lost." Mr. Rainbow swore that apart from its liabilities upon these bills of Collie's his firm was solvent, and that he would not have accepted the bills if he had known that the cotton was not in Collie's hands.
'While the Guildhall examination was proceeding, with the aid of such eminent lawyers as Serjeant Ballantine and Sir Henry James, things began look black for Mr. Alexander Collie. The situation was thus summed up in the Daily News of August 10, 1875: — "We have heard reports of meetings of creditors, and the statements of accountants throwing light on the personal habits of the defendants. It has been seen that these men, whose capital existed only in name, but whose operations have lowered the pride and the dividends of our greatest banks, have been living in all the prodigality of luxury. The lease of the house in which Alexander Collie lived has been sold for £38,500, and to tho number and value of the 'costly contents' of the mansion, justice could only be done by a five days' sale. Between them the defendants have been in the habit of drawing £20,000 year for their personal expenditure, Mr. Alexander Collie having drawn £123,000 for himself."
'On the morning of August 9th, 1875, Mr. Serjeant Parry appeared at Guildhall for the Union Bank of Scotland to make an additional charge against Alexander Collie of obtaining money from that bank on false pretences. But neither could that be gone into, nor could the examination of the other be continued. Alexander Collie did not answer to his name, and Mr. Serjeant Ballantine, his counsel, could only say that he had received a message stating that his client had not been at home for a day or two. Alexander Collie's flight, and the evidence so far as it had gone, proclaimed him the real culprit, and criminal proceedings were forthwith stopped. Warrants were of course granted for the apprehension of Alexander Collie, but he was never brought to justice. It was ascertained long afterwards that he was in Spain. At that time there was no extradition treaty with that country. He escaped our law, but suffered a life-long exile.
'Some time ago Collie was seen in America by one who had known him in his prosperous days. He was employed as a stationmaster at some obscure town in the United States, and lived, of course, under an assumed name.
'Coming to Manchester from Aberdeen as a very young man, Mr. Collie was employed for some years in the warehouse of Messrs. Henry Bannerman and Sons. He afterwards started on his own account, beginning with South American business, which he carried on successfully for some years in a warehouse at the corner of Stevenson Square nearest to Newton-street. The premises becoming too small for his growing trade, he removed to the building in Portland-street, next to Dickinson-street, where he entered into the India and China export business. Later on Mr. Collie, whose Eastern trade was at the same time expanding, built a new warehouse in Aytoun-street, now the Grand Hotel. Soon afterwards he removed to London, where he conducted the financial and other business of his house, leaving his brothers John and William to manage the details of the Manchester warehouse, which were carried on upon a large scale until the collapse came.'[3]