The function that the Fed provides. Or supposed to provide was provided by wholesale banks. If you read the House of Morgan. You will see that the merchant banks used to bailout other banks in the same way a central bank would. They made a lot of money doing it too. Although the Fed is a official insititution the function it provides "laugh" was previously provided by the private wholesale banks.
If by private wholesale banks you mean the city banks having correspondent relations with their country cousins, then yes. But no, they weren't wholesale banks. They took deposits from the public. The UK is not the world.
Wow, could you be more wrong. Notice Marty is smart enough to evade this issue. He gets cute and says define private. Lets discuss facts. The Fed shareholders are the Regional FED banks. Those Regional Fed banks are owned by private shareholders. Conclusion: The Federal Reserve is a private bank. Now if you are going to argue quasi - understand the only power congress seems to have is to pull the charter. So it is a private bank whose charter can be revoked. The fed was set up to make profits for bankers. It does not matter that the FED gives 97% of its profits to the U.S. The billions or trillions in profits were made by the member banks owners who have the implicit backing of the U.S. govt behind them. Even when they lose trillions.
It would help if you had your facts correct first. From the web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond : Membership Application Any state-chartered bank may become a member of the Federal Reserve System. The 12 regional Reserve Banks supervise state member banks as part of the Federal Reserve Systemâs mandate to assure strength and stability in the nationâs domestic markets and banking system. Reserve Bank supervision is carried out in partnership with the state regulator, assuring a consistent and unified regulatory environment. Each state member bank must subscribe to capital stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of its district in an amount equal to six percent of its combined capital and surplus (but excluding retained earnings); three percent must be paid in and the remaining three percent is on call. The paid in portion currently earns an annual dividend of six percent. http://www.richmondfed.org/banking/federal_reserve_membership/ No shit. The government gets money at very low interest since most of the interest they pay to the Fed every year is returned to the Treasury at the end of the year. In return, the banks got a fractional reserve scheme for lending/making a profit. It's mutually beneficial to each other and marginally beneficial to the public who gets more credit than would otherwise be available. Is it perfect? Hell no. But, it was arguably a more stable system than the two previous attempts.
For those willing to hear such things... at the highest of central banking, money is hot women between the ages of 15 and 35. That is the ultimate wholesale. Many corps and individuals compete for "digits". Most digits? Hottest chicks.
Try reading something besides mises.org. You could look through ALL of Pirenne (who?) or Braudel, and not see a single mention of private banks doing the functions that were taken up by, say, the Bank of Amsterdam. Adam Smith, Mackay, and Bagehot all do mention this, but of course they were talking about the UK. Galbraith's Money, Whence it Came, Where it Went, is highly entertaining and an accurate read on how the Fed started. If you prefer it from the right, there's James Grant, who's just as entertaining, and lays this out pretty much the same way, facts being, you know, facts. If you prefer myths and just-so stories, you can read the crap on the Internet.
If you want two good books on boths sides I would recommend the Mystery of Banking Rothbard. Austrian. Central Banking in a Free Society Congdon. Monetarist.