This is the history of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China which was founded in 1853 following the abrogation of the monopoly held by the East India Company since 1600. Prominent among the founders of the Bank were Robert Lowe, one of the most remarkable personalities of his day who afterwards became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and James Wilson who in 1843 had founded The Economist. Sir Compton Mackenzie relates how these determined men, characteristic of their generation, overcame powerful opposition to the granting of a Royal Charter of incorporation and how they set the Bank upon a course which it has pursued undeviatingly to this day.