The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank – S P E C I a L E D I T I O N –

ISSUE 10 Autumn/Winter 2020

www.martinsbank.co.uk

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank – S p e c i a l E d i t i o n –

The main purpose of Martins Bank Archive is to demonstrate how – from 1928 until 1969 – the Bank developed into a major competitor to many of the larger banks on the scene; how it kept pace with and often outpaced the others with aspects of new banking technologies, and of course to reflect upon the expansion of the Bank to the point where it could no longer continue under its own steam.

In this special edition of Martins Bank Archive Newsletter, we will be concentrating on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank, who by merging with the Bank of Liverpool and Martins, sustained and

increased the solid banking foundations upon which Martins Bank 43 Spring Gardens Manchester – Head Office of Limited was to successfully build for a period of forty years. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank

Image © Barclays Our Archive holds a small number of artefacts and publications

from several of the many constituent banks that were subsumed by or merged with each other before the 1928 amalgamation that created Martins Bank Limited.

Thanks to the detective work and generosity of several friends of the Archive, we wanted to bring together in one place the items we now hold which relate to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank. We would like to show how this particular member of the Martins “family” engendered many of the values which Martins Bank’s surviving staff and customers tell us were special and are fondly remembered as having brought a feeling of family and security to its workforce. In 1946 when Martins Bank Magazine is published for the first time, the editor runs a series of articles telling the story of many of the older banks that came together to make the modern-day Martins Bank. The following article is taken from the

Autumn 1946 edition of the Magazine, where John Mashiter, then The very imposing counter area - seen here ca.1922 Manager at Skipton, told the story of the Lancashire and Image © MBA Collection – W N Townson Bequest

Yorkshire Bank…

Of all the banks contributing to the growth of the Bank of Liverpool from its small inception in 1831 to the great organisation which became Martins Bank Limited in 1928, none added more than the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Limited. So wide were its ramifications; so many the number of smaller banks which it absorbed itself that it is scarcely possible to do justice to its history in one short article. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Limited was incorporated in 1872 to take over on July 1st of that year the established Manchester business of the Alliance Bank Limited. The latter, a London bank established in 1862, had opened branches in Manchester in 1864 and at Liverpool shortly afterwards.

By 1871 the directors of the Alliance had decided provincial business was not for them and both branches were about to be relinquished. Their Manchester manager, Mr. John Mills, disagreeing with their view became the moving spirit in the flotation of a new company which, as the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Limited with a nominal capital of £1,000,000, took over the Manchester business of the Alliance Bank and

One of the last cheques to be issued by “without any payment for goodwill, property or plant”, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank established itself in the old Alliance branch offices at No. Image © April 1927 - MBA Collection

73 King Street.

By the end of 1872 the new bank was firmly established, the paid-up capital was £96,400, net profits for the first half year of £3,932 had been earned, and a branch had been successfully opened at Waterfoot. During the following year branches were opened at Pendleton, Shudehill and Sowerby Bridge and this policy of expansion was continued until by the time the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Ltd., effected its first big amalgamation with the Bury Banking Co. Ltd., in 1888 it already had twenty-two branches and sub-branches of its own. The Bury Banking Co. Ltd., founded upon the old business of Grundys and Wood, brought a very useful

connection in Bury and Heywood, where the Woods and Four of the key constituents of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Grundys had been drapers and bankers since 1798, and also branches at Radcliffe, Ramsbottom and Whitefield. In 1889 the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank moved to its new Head Office at No. 43 Spring Gardens, where the building of the old Bridgewater Club had been purchased in 1880 and subsequently adapted to its new use.

An Interval of four years now elapsed before the policy of opening branches in suitable towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire was continued with the establishment of a useful chain in the resorts of Southport, St. Annes and Blackpool in 1893, but it was not until 1894 that the next amalgamation took place when the Preston Union Bank

Limited, founded in 1869 as the Union Bank of Preston Women Clerks hard at work in The door of the main safe, the Machine Accounting Room which is said to weigh FIVE Limited was absorbed. in 1922.. tonnes…

Image © MBA Collection Image © MBA Collection

Before the end of the century a further amalgamation, that with the Adelphi Bank Ltd., in 1899, gave a valuable foothold

in Liverpool and a small cluster of Manchester branches to add to the already formidable list. The Adelphi Bank Limited founded in 1861-62 has left one landmark to this day, for the lovely carved doorway and bronze gates of its Head Office are still to be seen at the Castle Street branch of Martins Bank Ltd. In 1901 appeared the first number of “The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club Magazine”, one of the earliest staff magazines to be produced by a bank. It maintained a successful quarterly issue until 1914 when the Great War put an end to it. Next year, 1902, brought amalgamation with the West Riding Union Banking Co. Ltd. The latter was easily the most important of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank's absorptions. Its origin went back to 1799 with the establishment at Mirfield of the business of Ben Wilson. This family business was incorporated in 1832 as the Mirfield and Huddersfield District Banking Company and in 1836 on amalgamation with the business of Hague, Cook and Wormald which had been established in Dewsbury in 1818 and had branches at Bradford and Wakefield, the name of the joint concern became the West Riding Union Banking Co. It was registered in 1879 as a

company limited by share liability and at the time of the The Bronze Gates of the Apelphi Bank at amalgamation with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Castle Street, liverpool Image © 1922 MBA Collection – W N Townson Bequest

Ltd. had ten branches and five sub branches. Not content with this progress the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Ltd. began in the following year negotiations with the Mercantile Bank of Lancashire Ltd. and early in 1904 the fusion was completed.

This newcomer to the fold had, besides a fine office and business in Mosley Street, Manchester, a wide connection in the Isle of Man, a cattle market business founded on the original business of John Nail and his successors, Wm.

Brown and Sons of Salford, and the Southport business Having branches on the Isle of Man entitled the formerly held by the London and Lancashire Bank. Mercantile Bank of Lancashire to issue its own £1 notes…

Image © MBA Collection The Manx business had been acquired by the Mercantile Bank's absorption in 1900 of the Manx Bank Limited established in Douglas in 1882 and it brought with it a privilege which Martins Bank Ltd., subsequently acquired and still enjoys, the right to issue bank notes in the Isle of Man. Following this amalgamation the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Ltd. devoted itself to a period of

consolidation and no new branches were opened until This privilege became that of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank (and subsequently that of Martins Bank Limited until 1961) 1910, when premises were obtained at Gatley. The end of Images - MBA Collection the 1914 war brought fresh activity and in 1919 new branches were opened at Colne, Fleetwood, Mill Hill and Slade Lane (Manchester), followed by branches at Harrogate, Liversedge, Whalley Range and Blackpool (South Shore), in the next two years. Finally in 1928 came the amalgamation with the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Ltd., in which the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Ltd., with its 151 branches, lost its identity. A Stronger Union… After only fifty-six years, the name of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank is to disappear, as the amalgamation with the Bank of Liverpool and Martins is completed. However, in one final act by the directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire, reference to “the Bank of Liverpool” is to be removed from the name of the new bank, which is to be known simply,

(and perhaps more conveniently) as MARTINS BANK

LIMITED. Shareholders in the former Bank receive letters like this one early in 1928, informing them of the transfer of shares held into those of Martins Bank. The shares are allocated “pari passu” – that is on an equal value basis, so that one L & Y share becomes one Martins Bank share. A “sweetener" is added in

the form of a cash payment of £1 for each share held.

Image © MBA Collection

The end of an era… From 1901 to 1914, The Lancashire and Yorkshire Club Magazine kept members of the staff of that bank in touch with each other, and the changing face of the world, and of banking, in much the same way as Martins Bank Magazine did over its twenty-three- year run. In fact Martins Bank Magazine probably owes its existence to the efforts of those involved with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club. It is interesting that one ceased publication at the start of the FIRST World War, and the other began its run at the end of the SECOND World War.

Despite a gap of more than thirty years, the need for a staff publication for Martins Bank was kindled by a series of newsletters which had been produced by Head Office during the Second World War. These sent by the Bank to staff on the home front and to those fighting abroad for their country. Notwithstanding the sombre nature of the content, often detailing those who were missing or killed in action, the newsletters were well received, making those who read them feel part of a close family of colleagues and friends.

At the end of the War the suggestion that a regular publication which would follow the same kind of content and layout as the September 1906 Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club Magazine, saw the creation Image © MBA Collection – Alan Jones of Martins Bank Magazine.

The first ever “Manchester Letter” published in the Spring 1946 issue of Martins Bank Magazine, acknowledges this, and appeals in particular to the staff of the Manchester District of the Bank, to contribute to the pages of the new publication…

The announcement that a quarterly house magazine was to be published can have received no warmer welcome in any section of the bank than in the Manchester District—at any rate amongst the older members of the staff. For them it revives happy memories of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club Magazine, which, from the time of its first edition in 1904 until the cessation of its publication in 1917 due to the exigencies of the

first world war, was a popular feature of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank's activities.

Although its unqualified success was due to the efforts of the staff in general, the names of at east a dozen regular contributors spring to mind, but unfortunately all of them have either passed away or retired on pension. Fresh talent is therefore needed if the Manchester District is to make its proper contribution to the new venture. Encouragement will readily be forthcoming from the enthusiasm of the older members who will recollect with gratitude the spirit of collaboration and friendliness fostered by the old magazine, welding the individual members of the staff into one large family concern, working together with common interests. Now that the family has grown so considerably, little imagination is required to appreciate the important role which the new house magazine can play in the future activities of the staff.

A good read… Bear in mind that we are looking at the contents page of an in-house staff publication from well over one hundred years ago, and then consider how remarkably fresh and modern the topics are. As a Magazine that was largely filled with contributions from those who were also its readers, it makes sense that what matters to ordinary people and their working lives should be so well reflected. Image © MBA Collection – Alan Jones This is something that Martins Bank Magazine strived to achieve from its very first issue, and from those beginnings, what has since been left behind for us to examine are some ninety-six quarterly editions reflecting not just life in one of Britain’s many banks, but life in the outside world too. From an early article by a reader who spins wool from her pet Chow dogs and makes jumpers with it, to news of the computer age, the first cash machine and decimalisation, there is an honest if occasionally skewed reflection of British social history. Well done therefore to the “Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club” for being the catalyst…

Being there…

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank opens an office at Newton-le-Willows in 1924. It is run as a sub branch to Warrington, and although it merges with Martins Bank in 1928, this tiny sub branch is closed for good in 1931. Photographs of such short-lived offices that were opened such a long time ago are extremely rare, and we were amazed when Alan Jones contacted us and sent this wonderful image of Newton le Willows taken ca. 1927, the final days of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank. In Newton le Willows 1927 2019, FOUR photographs featuring some of Martins’ Images © MBA Collection – Alan Jones

smallest offices were donated to the Archive, and every one of them includes the face of someone who lived or worked in them – the value of old family photographs is simply immeasurable.

Newton le Willows Branch is a house known as Blythesdale, in which the Clerk in Charge Mr H I Jones lived, along with his wife and son Brian, who are the two people standing at the gate. Alan was also able to help us with a donation of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club Magazine from September 1906, which has been featured earlier in this newsletter. The Magazine offers sixteen pages without pictures, but as a frontispiece, there is this stunningly clear monochrome plate photograph showing the interior of Warrington Branch, and its Warrington 1906 somewhat dour looking Manager, Mr Fred William Image © MBA Collection – Alan Jones Gilbert!

Branching out… The Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank makes good use of the advertising space afforded by local and regional newspapers, and in the advertisement on the left from 1907, we are treated to a selection of key branch names, addresses, and Managers’ names, and what appears to be a set of rules spelling out what the customer can expect from the Bank, AND vice versa! The second advertisement, this time from 1919, uses a format that most banks employ right up to the time that they are allowed to sell their wares on television. This is a “generic” advertisement, it sets out standard information about the bank and its financial standing and the address of the head office. Then the advert becomes more “local” by giving top billing to a local branch – in this case Preston – but with out actually saying anything about that branch apart from where it can be found.

Changing times… Thankfully for architecture, Barclays had such a presence in The amalgamation of the Bank of Liverpool and Martins with the Manchester already, that it did not need to carry the plans out, and Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank allows the combined business to so a reminder of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank lives on!

stay independent and crucially to be based in the North of England for a further forty years. The spirit of the Lancashire and Yorkshire lives on after 1928, not least at 43 Spring Gardens Manchester, which continues to have an important role in the new set-up – it becomes Martins Bank’s Manchester District Office. Today as a restaurant, the building has been allowed to maintain its fabulous appearance, but it could all have been so different, if plans to demolish it and build an eleven-storey block had gone ahead in the late 1960s. Architects plans were drawn up and published just An Eleven Storey Block ? – no thanks… before the merger talks with Barclays were concluded.

Some for the album… In a Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank “gallery” we show some of the photographs and items held by, kindly loaned, or donated to the Archive.

Cleckheaton as a branch of the West Riding Union Bank Cleckheaton as a branch of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Bank

Amongst the items in our Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank collection, are these charming architects’ drawings of three branches opened by the bank in 1908. They feature in copies of the now defunct publication “Architect and Building News”, which regularly showcased newly designed

and built bank branches in their pages…

L and Y Bank Hale, (Cheshire) opened 1908 - L and Y Bank Ravensthorpe opened 1908 - L and Y Bank Skelmanthorpe opened 1908 - Image © MBA Collection Image © MBA Collection Image © MBA Collection

L and Y Bank Hale in 1922 - L and Y Bank Ravensthorpe in 1922 - Martins Bank Skelmanthorpe in the 1960s -

It is never too early to catch the savings bug, and in the case of this cheque, kindly donated by Alan Jones, the importance of having something put aside for a rainy day is the purpose of this gift of £5. Alan’s paternal grandfather gives the cheque to Alan’s younger brother Brian, who is just two months old at the time!

A good read – this lavish book is published to commemorate fifty years of the Financial Statement 1926 Lancashire & Yorkshire Bank Image © Martins Bank Archive Image © Martins Bank Archive Collection – Graces Guide Collection – W N Townson Bequest

Looking back, looking forward… This will come a sobering thought to many, but as time marches on we all notice that many of the things we once did, said, used or even manufactured have evolved, been replaced, or made redundant by alternative technologies. It is estimated that the COVID 19 Pandemic of 2020 has brought forward by some TEN YEARS or more, the moment that the UK will finally bid farewell to cash. For many people, it will still be unthinkable that their choice of payment methods will soon no longer include notes and coin. When that time does come, we will have lost yet another link with the great banks and monetary systems of the past. It makes you This brand-new branch in Bradford is surplus to the wonder what the directors of the Bank of Liverpool and Martins, and the Lancashire and requirements of the new Martins Bank, who close it less than two years after it opened… Yorkshire Bank would have made of being told that within or around one hundred years Image © 1926 Johnstone Press. Image created courtesy of after their merger, local branch banking and even cash itself would be virtually extinct! THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD and reproduced with kind permission of THE BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE

Half a world away, and a whole world away from today! Finally, we have an amazing story from the September 1906 edition of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank Club Magazine. It was sent to them by someone they refer to as a “colonial friend” and tells a jaw-dropping tale of banking in New Zealand at the turn of the twentieth century…

An American tourist in New Zealand called at a branch bank to cash a draft. The cashier had a large quantity of gold spread out upon the counter and was stooping to get something out of a cupboard as the American entered. The counter was narrow; the Yankee was a tall man. He spied an opportunity for a practical joke. Leaning well forward, he rested his hands on the other side of the counter, right in the midst of the unprotected sovereigns. The cashier sprang up alarmed. He had been negligent, yet he proved to be a man of resource, and nipping up a revolver from a ledge he presented it full at the supposed robber. But the Yankee was equally prompt. Ejaculating, " Oh, is that your little game?" he too produced a shooting-iron. The cashier dropped incontinently to the floor, and scrambled under the counter. No doubt it was funny to see. The American exploded in a roar of laughter, which attracted the notice of passers-by in the road. Some of these entered the bank, and the American, as well as he could for the laughter that racked him, explained that he had been “havin' a little fun with our friend under there”. Then the cashier crawled forth and surveyed his still shaking antagonist for a moment in dignified silence. (We doubt whether any one but a bank cashier could have preserved his dignity under such circumstances.) “That's all very well”, he said at last, “but my revolver wasn't loaded, or you might be laughing on the other side of your face” “Waal”, observed the American, picking up his weapon from the counter and clicking the trigger, “and I guess mine wasn't loaded neither !” They grew quite friendly afterwards over whiskey and cigars at the hotel across the way.

That’s all for this Newsletter - STAY SAFE – and we’ll be back again in 2021!

Martins Bank Archive exists to advance the education of British social history related to aspects of banking practices and technologies, and those who offered and used them in the 1960s. We identify and evaluate in particular, records and artefacts relating to Martins Bank Limited, including its former incarnations and its constituent banks, which will be of use to current and future researchers, acquiring such items for the archive and organising procedures and systems for their storage and preservation. Martins Bank Archive is a voluntary venture, and does not profit or seek to profit in any way from the display or other use of the images and other items in its possession, and every effort is made to establish and declare their ownership. Contributors and copyright holders are prominently acknowledged. Whilst Martins Bank Archive has no connection with the day to day trading activities of the Barclays Group of companies, we are grateful for the ongoing and generous guidance, advice and support of Barclays Group Archives in the building and shaping of this online social history.

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