GILBART, John William (1794-1863), the author of a number of works on banking, was descended from a Cornish family, aud was born in London, March 21, 1794. From 1813 to 1825 he w as clerk in a London bank, after which he went to Birmingham. Shortly after his return to London in 1827 he was appointed manager of the Kilkenny branch of t"he Provincial Bank of Ireland, and in 1829 he was promoted to the Waterford branch. In 1834 he became manager of the London and Westminster Bank; and to his skill in developing the system of joint-stock banking it owed much of its success. On more than one occasion he rendered valuable services to the joint-stock banks by his evidence before committees of the House of Commons; and, on the renewal of the bank charter in 1844, he procured the insertion of a clause granting to joint-stock banks the power of suing by their public officer, and also the right of accepting bills at less than six months’ date. In testimony of their obligations to him, the directors and shareholders of joint-stock banks presented him in 1846 with a handsome service of plate. In the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He retired on a pension from the management of the London and Westminster Bank, 1st January 1860, and died in London August 8, 1863. From au early period Gilbart took an active part in the Athenian Debating Society of London, and he was also connected with .the Union Society, which numbered among its other eminent members J. S. Mill and Lord Macaulay. He also devoted much of his attention to the promotion of literary and scientific institutions among the middle and working classes....