When nuns held up a bank

A community fearing being left behind, takes novel action to help change its economic and social fortune. Ryan Gilfeather tells the tale.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A pile of coins in focus at the bottom of an out of focus glass tube.

Small value coins were at the heart of the nuns' actions.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash.

Days before Christmas 2001 a mob of nuns and priests held up a bank in Oxford Street. They were not stealing money but rather paying it in. The Nuns of St Antony’s Forest Gate, a 2000-person strong Catholic parish saved their collection money until they had a staggeringly vast quantity to deposit. On the day, they took the money in a van to an HSBC branch in Oxford Street, wheeled it in on trolleys, where they proceeded to deposit every single coin.

At the same time priests in their clerical collars, and worshippers from a range of congregations in East London queued up at the other desk to slowly and repeatedly enquire about opening savings accounts. All the while, other members of these institutions stood outside holding banners accusing HSBC of exploiting low paid workers, saying “Give HSBC a Living Wage for Christmas.” The entire branch was brought to a standstill. Anxious Christmas shoppers stood helpless and astonished as this spectacle frustrated their attempts to withdraw money.

They heard that wages were so bad that workers needed to take on multiple jobs, forcing them to choose between feeding their kids and seeing them.

These nuns, priests and other Christians planned this action to secure a liveable wage for all who work at HSBC, but they also had broader ambitions. The East London Communities Organisation (TELCO), a broad-based coalition of citizens from churches, mosques, and other faith and community groups began to organise for a pay rate which was enough to live on, the amount which is now known as the Real Living Wage (currently £11.95 in London; £10.90 everywhere else). Each of these citizens had been listening to the people in their institutions. They heard that wages were so bad that workers needed to take on multiple jobs, forcing them to choose between feeding their kids and seeing them, and preventing them from praying and worshipping. Motivated by the belief that all human beings are of equal value and dignity in the eyes of God, these Christian communities, alongside the other groups in TELCO began campaigning for a fair and just rate of pay.

The new neighbour

As these discussions were ongoing they could see the new HSBC tower slowly ascending above their East London skyline. Considerable amounts of government money had been spent on the infrastructure of Docklands, which would serve this tower. TELCO citizens discerned that if it was going to benefit those who lived in east London, there would need to be a living wage for everyone who would work in that building. Therefore, they decided to ask the bank to make contracts for cleaning and security at the new tower on the condition that workers be paid enough to live on, in East London (£6.30 at the time). A number of religious and civic leaders had written to the HSBC chairman, Sir John Bond, to request a meeting to discuss these poverty wages. However, they had heard nothing back.

At this point, the nuns at St Antony’s came up with their plan. Visitors and members of the 2000 strong congregation would leave coins in the collection when they light candles in church, and the nuns were accustomed to depositing them every Tuesday. However, they decided to keep hold of them for several months until they managed to fill that small van. Eventually, on 19 December they set out in it to Oxford Street, with priests and parishioners in tow, and brought this branch to its knees.

The action worked. Within an hour Sir John had agreed to meet with TELCO members at St Philip's Church, Plaistow, to discuss their demands that cleaning and security contracts pay a living wage. Negotiations continued until 2004, when HSBC agreed to the campaigner’s demands, ensuring that every contractor pays a living wage, sick pay, pension and free access to a trade union. This victory built great momentum for the movement for a Real Living Wage, which is now voluntarily paid by over 12,000 UK employers. Therefore, this life-giving campaign for economic justice finds its origins, in part, with a group of nuns saving up their small change, because their faith led them to believe in the inextinguishable dignity and value of all human lives.

Review

Art

Culture

Royalty

Weirdness

8 July 2025

5 min read

From witchcraft to statecraft: inside the mind of King James

A new exhibition examines art the monarch commissioned and inspired

Susan Gray

Susan is a writer specialising in visual arts and contributes to Art Quarterly, The Tablet, Church Times and Discover Britain.

A portrait of King James VI, his eyes fix the viewer.

King James, by an unknown artist.

National Galleries of Scotland.

James IV and I devoted his twenties to trying to rid his kingdom of witchcraft. And 400 years after his death, witches continue to cast a long shadow over his reign. While James’ beliefs on evil developed and refined over his 58-year reign, his reputation as solely a torture and femicide perpetrator remains stubbornly hard to shift. For many, identification with the abused, marginalised- yet- magical trumps all other historical considerations.

In the exhibition World of James VI and I, the National Gallery of Scotland presents a more rounded picture of the cradle king, who gained the throne of Scotland at 13 months old and became the first joint monarch of Scotland and England in 1603, on the death of Elizabeth I. The beginning of James’ reign in England saw the first productions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, King Lear and The Tempest. Inigo Jones’ appointment as Surveyor of the King’s Work introduced the classical architecture of Rome to the country, designing The Queen’s House in Greenwich and the Banqueting House at Whitehall.

The painted ceiling of the Banqueting House by Peter Paul Rubens provides insight into James’ preoccupations. Commissioned by James in 1621, the tennis court sized series was installed in 1636 becoming a memorial to the late King. In The Apotheosis of James I, the King is depicted ascending into heaven on a giant eagle belonging to Jupiter, ruler of the Roman gods. The winged figure of Victory, together with a figure representing Great Britain hold a laurel wreath above the King’s head, in exchange for his earthly crown. Parallels between the King and divine power are explicit, underlined by the figure of Religion holding the freshly translated Bible showing the first words of St John’s gospel ‘In the beginning’ (was the Word). In a side panel to The Union of the Crowns, where the King is presented in a Biblical setting, Minerva, goddess of wisdom is stamping on Ignorance, represented by an old woman, naked and floored.

Rubens’ identification of an old woman as low status and powerless did not come out of thin air. In the social hierarchy of seventeenth century northern Europe, most ordinary people had few rights and women had next to none, entitled only to the legal protection of their husband’s rank. But lack of rights did not prevent women from influencing their communities’ moral tone. The victims of the infamous East Berwick witch trials in 1590-92 and Pendle witch trials in 1612, first came to the attention of authority through accusations and feuds within their own communities.

Daemonologie, published in Edinburgh in 1597, was written following James perceived experiences of witchcraft when storms imperilled his voyage from Denmark to Scotland, returning with his new 15-year-old bride Anne. It is believed the King was involved in interrogations of witchcraft suspects in East Berwick, authorising their torture and execution. One suspect’s ability to recount a conversation from the royal bridal chamber, convinced James the accused were the tools of diabolical powers intent on killing the royal couple. Beliefs around women’s inherent weakness, positioned them as easier prey for malevolent forces:

‘sexe is frailer than man is, so is easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Devill’

In later life James became more sceptical about claims of witchcraft and demonic possession, and searched for evidence to discount what was only the work of fantasy and attention-seeking.

But the King’s family history and tumultuous times he lived through, made the road to discernment a long and winding one. James last saw his mother, Mary Queen of Scots as an 11-month-old infant. His father Lord Darnley was killed in a mysterious explosion, possibly arranged by his own wife. Mary was imprisoned in England by Elizabeth I and executed in 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire. In the lead up to his marriage James lamented that as a child he was ‘alone, without father, mother, brother or sister.’

The normalcy of removing troublesome relatives is illustrated by a 1605 portrait of Lady Arabella Stuart, attributed to Robert Peake the Elder. The King’s cousin died in the Tower in 1615, where James had her imprisoned, in case her marriage to William Seymour gave her too strong a claim on the throne.

Today’s witches on Etsy may feel they are reclaiming a lineage of folk wisdom and reparation for past wrongs. But willingly stepping into the scapegoat role... has no historical precedent.

Death also stalked James and Anne’s family, with only two out of their seven children surviving into adulthood. Their eldest son and heir Prince Henry Frederick died aged 18, and was mourned throughout Europe in the decades that followed the death in 1612, as he was seen as the great hope of the continent’s future.

The World of King James VI and I is full of visual meditations on death. On entering visitors are greeted with Livinius de Vogalaare’s The Memorial of Lord Darnley, 1567, a substantial canvas, with a crowned, grey-robed infant James, kneeling before his father’s coffin. Darnley’s effigy with hands in prayer lies on top the casket, unicorns either side of his head. An engraving of Prince Henry Frederick’s Hearse, 1640 copy from 1612 original, shows the richly decorated hearse, complete with a wax effigy dressed in the prince’s clothes, which was accompanied by 2000 mourners as it made its way to Westminster Abbey. Eighteenth century artist James Mynde’s engraving The Mausoleum of James VI and I, illustrates the Jacobean era’s fondness for lavishly dressed effigies of the deceased, surrounded by figures of classical deities.

Charm stones, believed to cure sickness in people and animals, formed part of James’ cosmology, together with the new translation of the Bible he commissioned, intended to sound beautiful for this age of oracy. James advocated for Protestantism and the reformation, while being in regular communication with the Papacy. He also brought a more English style of worship to the independent-minded Scottish kirk, insisting they used chalices and altar cloths. The monarch was devout, yet flexible, in his Christian beliefs.

A simple reading of the Jacobean court is not possible. It was a place of ritualised gift-giving, with ciphered and initialled jewels indicating who was in or out of favour, whose power was rising, and whose power was waning. James believed he was sent by God to rule and protect his people, and felt justified in extinguishing anyone or anything threatening his divine project. Self -proclaimed, or community-nominated witches provided useful scapegoats for discontent around James’ rule, underlined in 1605 by the Gunpowder Plot.

Today’s witches on Etsy may feel they are reclaiming a lineage of folk wisdom and reparation for past wrongs. But willingly stepping into the scapegoat role and presenting a blank screen for the dark projections of the powerful, has no historical precedent for bringing liberty or social transformation. Cos-playing the historically marginalised will not make things better for today’s excluded and underserved, but focusing on down to earth, earthly political and economic power will.

The World of James I and VI, National Galleries of Scotland, until 14 September.

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