stunning joe banks, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

stunning joe banks adj.

[stunning adj. (2) + proper name Joe Banks, a contemporary publican–cum–receiver, based in Dyott Street, Seven Dials, London, and later in the Cranbourne Street rookery n. (2), who always gave a fair price to the thieves with whom he dealt. Like many receivers, he added to his income by returning, for a price, the stolen goods to their original owners. His neckties, adds Hotten (1860), were as stunning as his character and the aristocracy, as well as the underworld, patronized his after-hours drinking club]

excellent to the highest degree.

[1842		Era (London) 27 Feb. 12/1: On Tuesday next there will be a first rate display of the fistic art [...] "Stunning Joe’ Banks, ‘Esq.’ [...] St Giles’s treasurer for the subscriptions for a belt to be presented to Tommy the Greek, the ‘St Giles’s Pet and Champion of the Roughs,’ has issued cards of invitation].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1906		H.D. Miles Pugilistica 49: Corcoran, with the ‘gift of the gab,’ was the landlord of the Blakeney’s Head, St. Giles's, and was a sort of ‘Stunning Joe Banks’ of his day.