Embarrassing leaks, clashes with the chancellor, and stiff upper lips all round in Threadneedle Street while turmoil raged outside: it sounds like the credit crisis of 2007-09, but a huge cache of documents released by the Bank of England on Wednesday showed that some things had barely changed since the 1920s.

Published in their original handwritten form, the minutes of meetings of the Bank’s Court of Directors from 1914 to 45, and of another key decision-making body, the Committee of the Treasury, from 1914 to 1931, reveal a rich interweaving of the Earth-shattering and the mundane, which carried several echoes of the most recent crisis period of 2007-09 – minutes from which were released by the Bank on Tuesday.

Much of the time, the Court busied itself with matters that would now be considered the preserve of human resources – rubber-stamping pension payouts for loyal staff and replenishing the pool of lady clerks as they left for married life.

As the chancellor, Winston Churchill, prepared to announce Britain’s return to the straitjacket of the gold standard of fixed exchange rates in April 1925 – one of the pivot-points in 20th century economic policymaking – the Court was busy passing a new rule, prohibiting its clerks from having a flutter at the races – or anywhere else: “A clerk is strictly prohibited from entering into or being concerned in gambling transactions connected with Horse Racing, Card Games, Stocks, Shares, Produce or otherwise. Any infraction of this Rule renders a Clerk liable to immediate dismissal.”

In 1944, aside from the challenges of financing the war effort, the Court considered plans for marking the 250th anniversary of its founding (the directors decided to purchase “a piece of modern plate” and present it to the Bank).

Much of the real decision-making took place elsewhere, in the Committee of the Treasury. Minutes of this body show that like Lord King, who warned publicly of the “moral hazard” of bailing out banks as the financial crisis raged, Montagu Norman, the legendary Bank governor in charge during almost the entire period, sometimes considered it his job to give his opposite number in the Treasury a good talking-to.

In January 1931, as Britain battled to remain on the gold standard, with gold reserves rapidly declining, Norman told the Committee of the Treasury “he had during the past week again discussed the matter with the Labour Chancellor and had told him that if there were in the near future any indication of a flight from sterling, whether due to loss of gold, budget prospects, Socialist legislation or any other cause, he would consider it necessary to advise an increase in the [interest] rate; such action would doubtless be unpopular, but he believed it would be necessary and it would draw attention to the unsatisfactory position”.

Later that year, as the “drain” continued, the Bank negotiated emergency credit arrangements with its counterparts in New York and Paris. The Court was told: “The Chancellor of the Exchequer had been informed that in view of the unsatisfactory domestic position the Bank were not prepared to enter into these credits without some promise of support by the government in case of need”.

The then chancellor, Philip Snowden, complied; and somewhat like the rubber-stamping role sometimes taken by its successor in 2007-09, “the Court approved the arrangements that had been made”.

In another echo of the 2008-09 crisis, Norman was concerned, as King was, about leaks – or “leakages” as they were then known – though naturally the gentlemen in Threadneedle Street could not be responsible.

After details of a bond issue at the time of Britain’s return to the gold standard of fixed exchange rates had leaked out in April 1925, the Committee of the Treasury was told: “The governor stated that the whole affair was very disagreeable but he was satisfied that there had not been any betrayal of confidence.”

Though King insisted in his recent outing on Radio 4’s Today programme that he found the financial crisis “fun”, he may have envied the slower pace of life of his predecessors. The Committee of the Treasury was informed in February 1931 that “the governor proposes to sail to New York on 21st March and will be absent for about a month”: though not before it had agreed to spend £690 on constructing a bowling green at its new sports ground in Walthamstow.