In 1985, Philip Cazenove, a descendant of exiled Huguenot financiers, set up a stockbroking firm with the sole aim of profiting from industrialisation. Cazenove & Co, founded in 1823, London’s most uppercrust and brokerage. Headquartered at Tokenhouse Yard, a late nineteenth-century, built for Huth’s bank, in the grand Victorian townhouse, a narrow cul-depsac nestled behind the Bank of England – with exquisite marble fireplaces, mahogany desks, and costly oil paintings, lease acquired by partners of Cazenove in 1935. Fiercely independent, the firm had always maintained a low profile, shunning the press and refusing to disclose details of its own affairs or those of its confidential clients.  Before lunch, three quarter pints of beer were served, followed by port and cigars. Staff were paid into a special Cazenove account from which they could draw cash via a understanding administrator who would do the rounds on Fridays, asking “Spot of cash sir?”.

All that changed sin e the UK government’s ”Big Bang” reforms in 1986, although Cazenove managed to maintain its independence  and the old way of doing things longer than many of its old City rivals.

Cazenove’s CEO for 23 years, son of an Australian immigrant, Robert Pickering’s Blue Blood is a biography of the firm on its 200^th anniversary, showing how the City of London was transformed, from a UK-focused ecosystem, where tight relationships between brokerage houses and the British business they advised were greased by the private school and Oxbridge alumni that helmed both. By 2008, Cazenove had become Europe’s and the world’s leading financial centre, only to fade again since then because of Brexit and financial crisis.

Today the name exists only as a sub-brand of Schroders Investment Management, which bought Cazenove Capital, and a British sub-brand of JP Morgan, which bought the core business. The firm 20 years ago moved its head quarters to 20, Moorgate with a launch buy Eddie George, the governor of the Bank of England, and Cazenove had to turn off the building’s fire alarm system effectively invalidating its own insurance, to accommodate George’s profuse smoking habit.

As Caz’s independent future becomes untenable amid mounting competition, there is a lengthy account of various rival bids – notably from Lehman Brothers.

Pickering recalls on a flight to the US, the Cazenove contingent went first class, while their JPMorgan masters had to go in business class. David Mayhew, Cazenove’s fabled chair and dealmaker with his impeccable charm, and his unmatched client relationships making his negotiating nous pith perfect.

Blue Blood: Cazenove in the Age of Global Banking by Robert Pickering, Whitefox £24.99, 416 pages.