Montagu Collet Norman, 1st Baron Norman DSO PC (6 September 1871 – 4 February 1950) was an English banker, best known for his role as the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944.
Bank of England
He became a director of the Bank of England in 1907 and during World War I he was a financial advisor to government departments. He was appointed Deputy Governor in 1917 and he became Governor in 1920. He engineered the bank's takeover of the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Vienna and the creation of the Anglo-Czechoslovak Bank in Prague. Under Norman, the bank underwent significant change. He was a supporter of the return to the gold standard, which he called "knaveproof", in 1925, despite the opposition of economist John Maynard Keynes. In 1931, at the height of the Great Depression, Norman commented, "Unless dramatic measures are taken to save it, the capitalist system throughout the civilized world will be wrecked within a year"; he borrowed $250 million in an attempt to stave off speculative attacks upon the pound. Later that year, however, the United Kingdom was forced to permanently abandon the gold standard after the publication of the May Report on the UK's budget deficit provoked a further financial crisis. Norman was returning from a cruise to Canada at the time, and did not learn the news until he docked in the UK.
Norman was a close friend of the German Central Bank President Hjalmar Schacht, who served in Hitler's government as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics between 1934 and 1937. Norman was also so close to the Schacht family that he was godfather to one of Schacht's grandchildren. Both were members of the Anglo-German Fellowship and the Bank for International Settlements.
While in the past Norman's role in the transferring of Czech gold to the Nazi regime in March 1939 was uncertain, careful investigation by historian David Blaazer into the Bank of England's internal memos has established that Norman knowingly authorized the transfer of Czech gold from Czechoslovakia's No. 2 account with the Bank for International Settlements to the No. 17 account, which Norman was aware was managed by the German Reichsbank. Within ten days the money had been transferred to other accounts. In the fall of 1939, two months after the outbreak of World War II, Norman again supported transfers of Czech gold to Hitler's Germany. On this occasion His Majesty's Government intervened to block Norman's initiative. He retired from the bank in 1944.
Honours
Following his retirement, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Norman, of St Clere in the County of Kent, on 13 October 1944. In addition to receiving the Distinguished Service Order, Norman was sworn of the Privy Council in 1923 and was created a Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagu_Norman,_1st_Baron_Norman
Documents reveal Bank of England sold stolen gold for Nazis
Archived material details how gold bars plundered from Czechoslovakia were sold on behalf of Germany's central bank in 1939
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Wednesday 31 July 2013 07:44
Montagu Collet Norman (right), Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944, talks with Hjalmar Schacht , German financier and Hitler's minister of economics in around 1935 (Getty Images)
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