Rtn John Watkins: My life in the City

8 September 2022: My life in the City

The news of the Queen’s death was not announced until after this meeting finished. Our member John Watkins spoke to us about his life in the City. Our Club records give his professional status as “Retired bank director” but he originally wanted to be an engineer, joining the engineering company Kelvin Hughes on leaving school.

He said Kelvin Hughes were good employers who provided excellent training. However, at the end of two years he had decided that engineering was not for him after all. He answered a newspaper advertisement for staff to join the Bank of Adelaide. It was somewhat to his surprise that he got the job.

He was also surprised to discover that he would start in the Messengers’ Department. This was only to last for a month but that was enough to give him considerable respect for the messengers and their extensive knowledge of the City and of banking.

He worked in various other departments, including the Import and Export Department which mainly dealt with import and exports from and to Australia. This meant he had to learn about international trade, international money transfer, commercial law and maritime law.

From the Bank of Adelaide he moved to a privately-owned bank based in Switzerland with branches in various parts of the world. While working there he was contacted by a Swiss friend with whom he had worked at the Bank of Adelaide, who offered him a job with the Union Bank of Switzerland (“UBS”), which was about to start operations in this country.

Roughly half the thirty London staff were Swiss and half British. John found himself again working in import and export. The bank’s UK operation expanded and, because the local bank management knew that he had an interest in technology, he was asked whether he could set up a computer system. (This was early in the 1970s, well before the time of PCs.) He got together a team of programmers and designed a system for the London office.

He was then asked to do something similar in other UBS branches in this country and around the world. When UBS wanted to move into new London premises he was asked to oversee the project to design the space. That led to him again being asked to do something similar for UBS operations all round the world.

So, John explained to us, his Rotary badge may say “Retired bank director” but in reality he spent a great deal of his career as a Project Manager with little direct involvement in banking.