The Jobbing System of the London Stock Exchange: An Oral History
Ref.No.:  35	Playback No.:

Interviewee's surname: Anderson	Title: Mr
Interviewee's forenames: Arthur William	('Tommy') 
Date of birth:   12 October 1923	Sex:  Male

Date(s) of recording: 24 July 1990
Location of interview:  Institute of Historical Research
Name of interviewer:  Bernard Attard
Type of recorder:  Marantz CP 430
Total no. of tapes:      2   Speed:
Type of tape:   TDK AR 60    Noise reduction:   DBX
Mono or stereo:  Stereo      Original or copy:  Copy
Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: CMH; no restrictions

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

Tape 1, Side 1

Birth in London in 1923; parents; father runs a shop selling meat for animals; education; leaves school at 14; first job with diamond merchant in Hatton Garden; gets job with solicitors in the City; learns of job with F & N Durlacher in 1938; obtains job as office boy; assists in transfer department; takes over job of transfer clerk when war breaks out; returns to firm in 1947 after military service; has appendicitis; but firm continues to pay his wage; becomes a checking clerk and then obtains a blue button; replaces a blue button who had been inefficient carrying messages; difficulty in identifying firms and system he devised for overcoming it; feelings about being a blue button; 1950/51, asked to become a dealer; nerves on first day when asked a price; stands with Pat Durlacher; does first big deal in Metal Box; description of Durlacher at time of joining; size of the firm; memories of senior partner bringing orders in his pocket in the morning; these orders were all booked through the same broker; firm dealing in rubber and brewery stocks; only later takes up industrial stocks; the way in which mergers were handled; description of the background of other people working in the firm; attitude of people at home to Arthur Andersen's job; effect of the war on the firm; first memories of going onto the Stock Exchange; description of the functions of the one-man jobbing firms; mergers with King & Co; Albert E Sharp; Blackwell & Co; style of jobbing when first started; how gets the nickname 'Tommy'; qualities of Pat Durlacher as a jobber; dealing in industrial shares; joint book in brewery shares with Bone Oldham.

Tape 1, side 2

Joint book with Bone Oldham; Jerome Briggs who ran the distillers book and refused to work on Friday 13th; Esmond Durlacher; description of the industrial pitch; people who worked on the industrial book, which grows in size; invitation to become a partner in 1970; qualities of a jobber and difficulty of teaching them to a person; intricacies of price making; importance of being able to change from a bull to bear tack; how adjusted prices in a bear market; example of a successful gamble when dealing in Bermid  Industries; reckons you need to get seven out of ten deals right; example of losing money dealing London and Liverpool.shares; does not believe it necessary to have contact with the company in whose stock you were trading; value of contact with the company broker; role of the analyst in jobbing firms; attitude of older jobbers to company information; brokers use the jobbers as a source of information; 1974 moves to South African gold market where loses a lot of money; contrast between gold market and industrial market; facility of dealing with large orders in pre-1986 Stock Exchange; jobbers are gamblers; example of Sir Nigel Mordaunt; the way a broker dealt with a large order and how he chose a jobber; jobber/broker relations; returns to the industrial market; growth of Durlacher business in the industrial market; Arthur Anderson basically a bear jobber; involvement in stake building in a company called Babcock & Wilcocks.

Tape 2, side 1

Price agreements and price wars; joint books with Bisgood and difficulty of running them; put throughs; does not think they were bad from a business point of view; underwriting organised by the partnership committee; increase in size of bargains; largest orders were matched; how leaks occured;.insider trading; trading on personal account comprises 50 per cent of turnover; mechanics of trading on personal account; no real contact with clients; stays on industrial book until retirement in 1984; contrast between Durlacher in 1938 and Wedd in 1984; easier for a person like him to succeed having started his career in 1938; ease with which mergers were accomplished; jobbing still competitive despite reduction' in the number of firms; how went about competing with other jobbers; functions of a jobber's board and aspects of price making; contrast between Stock Exchange at start and end of his career; recollections of two dealers he had working for him; approach to running a pitch; capital required to run a book; where lived during his career;• advice to his son about going into the City; marriage; qualities of a successful jobber; ambition to succeed; admiration for jobbers in Smith Brothers.

Tape 2, side 2

Advantages of the pre-1986 Stock Exchange; people were able to do their business; satisfaction with his career.