The taking over of the Tamar Bank was due to a 'temporary inconvenience' experienced around 1837. A depositor who had a difference with Tamar management arrived with a wheel barrow demanding his money on deposit with the bank, thereby causing the bank to close its doors temporarily. An appeal was made, however, to the Bank of Australasla which assisted them to reopen, and at the same time persuaded the client to wheel back his dollars, which, it is said, he did. Shortly after this the director arrived from England with the company of the Union Bank of Australia fully arranged and ready to commence business in Launceston.
The Tamar Bank dissolved itself on April 30th, 1838, and the branch of the Union Bank of Australia was opened on May 1st, 1838 in the premises previously occupied by the Tamar Bank - thus commenced the history of the Union Bank of Australia.
In 1858, the present site on the corner of St. John and Paterson streets was purchased (by the Union Bank), and the current building was erected in and occupied in 1866. It became the Union Bank of Australia Limited in 1880.
The Union Bank remained open throughout the economic crises of the 1890s. It acquired the Bank of South Australia in 1892. By its centenary in 1937, it had 267 branches and agencies through Australia and New Zealand.
The Union Bank merged with the Bank of Australasia to form the Australia and New Zealand Bank Limited in 1951.
Text sourced from the 'Launceston Examiner', Wednesday 1st September 1937 (Trove).
