Banking on a name to build an empire

It was only a small report in the newspaper. But the news it contained was stunning. The name Hongkong Bank is about to disappear from Hong Kong. The bank will relaunch itself as HSBC, four initials which will no longer stand for anything. It is the latest in a series of curious name changes for the bank.

The man who started Hongkong Bank was not a banker. In fact, he did not even have a bank account, and owed cash to a subordinate.

Let us travel back in time to a cool morning in the spring of the year 1864.

A small steam ship is chugging along the south China coast on the Swatow line. It is heading north from the young colony of Hong Kong to the Chinese trading cities of the northeast coast. The boat was called the Manila, named after what was then one of the richest cities in Asia. It moved at a snail-like eight knots.

Leaning on the bowsprit, looking at the featureless grey-green coast, was an European in his early 30s, with close-set eyes and a dimple in his chin. His name was Thomas Sutherland and he was bored. But what choice did he have? He had to be on board, as senior employee of the local branch of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, which owned this particular boat.

The only way to pass the long hours was to contemplate the horizon or read. Someone had left some copies of Blackwood's Magazine in the ship's drawing room. Sutherland slumped back in his deckchair and began to read. They contained a series of articles on banking, which Sutherland read with fascination.