Oldest Cheque perhaps in history, signed by Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India

Warren Hastings (1732-1818), Governor-General of India

 

Signature and autograph wording on a cheque form to pay Pound 30 to Mr. Josua Patrick, with a striking portrait of Hastings by George Stubbs, engraved by his son George Townely Stubbs, Marylebone, 30th April 1795, the cheque drawn on Messrs Gosling, 19th Fleet Street, London, 17th May 1794.

 

 

This is perhaps the oldest cheque, and the only cheque outside of the one in the British Museum of the same period!

Warren Hastings was impeached on the grounds of corruption and cruelty in his Indian Administration.  This trial of 145 days ended with his acquittal but cost him Pounds 70,000!

Goslings Bank was a historical English bank, located since at least 1743 at No. 19 Fleet Street, London, and identified to customers by a hanging signboard depicting three squirrels. After becoming Goslings and Sharpe it was a constituent bank in the Barclays&Co merger of 1896 (Wikipedia)