Charles Townshend (British Army officer) known for his theatrical style, and he liked to associate with actors. In 1884, Townshend was part of the relief expedition to rescue the besieged army of General Charles Gordon, better known to the British public as "Chinese Gordon", at Khartoum. As a Royal Marine officer, he strictly speaking should not had been part of an Army expedition, but he wrote to Field Marshal Garnet Wolsely asking if he could go, and his request was granted. The way that Gordon had defied the orders of the government to leave Khartoum, knowing full well that the government could not abandon a
Bank of Khartoum Misr too established a branch in Khartoum, followed the next year by Jordan's Arab Bank. Then in 1958 the State Bank of Ethiopia (later Commercial Bank of Ethiopia), established a branch in Khartoum. In 1969, National and Grindlays Bank acquired Ottoman Bank, only to lose it the next year to nationalization. In 1970 the Sudanese government nationalized all the banks in the Sudan, changed the names of several, and put them under the Bank of Sudan. Barclays Bank, which had an extensive network of 24 branches, became the State Bank of Foreign Trade, and then Bank of Khartoum in 1975.