Supplies were obtained by partners travelling to London by post, but secrecy had to be preserved to maintain confidence in the bank's liquidity.
In 1819, Lord Darlington, as part of a long-running dispute with the Backhouse family, began amassing their banknotes by requiring his tenants to pay their rent using them.
Jonathan Backhouse was warned of the plot and travelled quickly to London to obtain a large amount of gold.
[5] Despite these challenges, Backhouse's was able to take advantage of the failures of other banks to expand into their former markets, for instance in Sunderland and Durham.
[6] By 1825, Backhouse's reliability through multiple crises made its notes the preferred currency for trade in County Durham, even over those of the Bank of England.