1838 – it was the year of Victoria's coronation, Charles Dickens published Oliver Twist and 400 miles away in Glasgow, Clydesdale Bank was founded.

As it marks its 175th birthday STEF LACH examines the history of the bank which still has its head office in Glasgow

GROWING industry and thriving agriculture around Glasgow in the 1830s meant a lot of businessmen were looking for loans to expand their operations and were also on the lookout for somewhere safe to keep their earnings.

James Lumsden saw an opportunity and founded The Clydesdale Banking Company, with the first official day of trading on May 7.

From the bank's office at 94 Miller Street in Glasgow, 31 current accounts were opened and £14,000 in deposits was taken by the branch's 21 members of staff.

Today, 175 years on, the bank's head office remains in Glasgow – at St Vincent Place – but now houses 1260 staff and caters for 17,000 retail accounts and around 5500 business accounts.

Mr Lumsden's ambition was admirable, but the first days of the bank were not without drama.

The office in Miller Street could not accommodate a cash safe.

And with deposits pouring in – £100,000 in the first month – the lack of a safe was a real problem.

Mr Lumsden and his team moved the short distance to 101 Miller Street within a month of the bank opening, where they had a safe and were able to better serve their customers.

At the same time, Clydesdale Bank opened a branch in Edinburgh's Royal Exchange Square.

That early pattern of rapid expansion was to continue, and by February 1839, three more branches had opened in Glasgow – at Trongate, Laurieston and Broomielaw.

Later that year, branches sprung up in Campbeltown and Falkirk.

Mr Lumsden was a busy man. As well as his role as chairman of the bank, he served as a member of Glasgow Town Council and was Lord Provost from 1843-1846.

In 1840, a new head office was purpose-built at 13 Queen Street at a cost of £9000. It was lit by gas.

Over the coming years, Clydesdale Bank continued to grow.

In 1844, it amalgamated with Greenock Union Bank.

Mr Lumsden died in 1856, but his bank's rise did not slow down and in 1858 it acquired the Edinburgh and Glasgow Bank.

Between 1868 and 1870, the bank bought numbers 28, 30, 36 and 40 St Vincent Place where its new head office would be based.

By 1873, Clydesdale Bank had 72 branches and a year later the head office at St Vincent Place opened and it remains there to this day.

A London branch opened in 1877 and in 1893, electric light was installed at the head office, where a typewriter was also located in 1899 and telephones fitted in 1905.

The bank has changed hands down the years, although it has always retained the Clydesdale name.

In 1920, it was acquired by the Midland Bank .

Three decades later it was merged with the North of Scotland Bank, becoming the largest in Scotland at the time.

However, other mergers left it as the country's smallest before it was sold to the National Bank of Australia (NAB) in 1987. It remains part of the NAB group to this day.

Clydesdale Bank also owns the Yorkshire Bank chain and together the two brands have 328 branches, 147 of which are Clydesdale branded.

Although the head office at St Vincent Place was recently sold to London-based real estate investor Allied Commercial Exporters for £8.8m, the bank rents it back from the new landlords.

A review of the business in 2012 led to a number of cost cutting measures which will see Clydesdale Bank cut 1400 jobs by 2015.