Like many other commercial banks of the time, Fox, Fowler, and Company was legally entitled to issue its own banknotes. However, when the Bank Charter Act was passed in 1844, no new banks could issue notes in England and Wales, and the number of note-issuing institutions fell gradually with financial sector consolidation. Fox, Fowler, and Company was the last commercial note-issuing bank in England and Wales, until it was bought out by Lloyds Bank in 1921.[1][2] Under the terms of the 1844 act, the bank lost the legal right to issue banknotes upon its merger with Lloyds, and the Bank of England became the sole note-issuing bank in England and Wales.[3]