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When the Bank of Liverpool opens at Silecroft near Millom in 1903, the business is run as an Agency – this is a
throwback to earlier banking times when an Agent would agree to transact
business but not as a permanent employee of the bank that engaged them. This
image shows “Alacra”, also known as “Lachra” Silecroft, site of George
Tomlinson, Licenced Grocer, and it is from here that the Bank’s Agency is
run, in conjunction with the Post Office.
Bank Agents could often negotiate favourable terms in lieu of, or in
addition to fees or wages, terms that perhaps included use of a Bank House,
or they might even be required to provide their own security as a kind of
insurance against loss or theft. They
were sometimes permitted to own shares in the bank, or to be paid in some way
commensurate with the performance of the Agency they operated behalf
of that bank. |
In Service: 1903 agency until 1925 then sub-branch
until 1939
Image
© Martins Bank Archive Collections
Extract
from Martins Bank Limited Annual Report and Accounts for 1938 – © Barclays
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Our records show a number of
Agents working in the late 19th century for many of the Banks that were subsumed
into Martins, but to find one – in this case Miss Mary Clark – working as
late as the mid 1920s is a little unusual. Although we have no photograph of Miss
Clark, we do have her career details in the Martins Staff Database. She was engaged by Messrs Wakefield
Crewdson’s Kendal Bank in 1884, to operate as an Agent at Bootle. From 1903, now under the Bank of Liverpool,
she also attended and ran Agencies at The Green until 1908, and at Silecroft
until her retirement in 1925. She
enjoyed a fairly long retirement, until her death on 1 August 1946.
When Mary Clark retired in
1925, Silecroft ceased its Agency status and was then run as a sub-Branch to
Millom. It became one of five branches
concentrated in this very small area of the Furness Peninsula, comprising
offices at Millom, The Green, Silecroft,
Bootle and Bootle Station. In common with a number of Martins Bank’s
sub-branches, Silecroft closes
for the Second World War in 1939 but is not re-opened.
Silecroft’s Agency opening
times as listed for 1921, are five and a half hours each week across two days
including Saturday morning. Saturday
opening for a business of this size is rare, but it may well have coincided
with some kind of local trading event such as a food or livestock market. We are grateful to Colin Skelton, former
Assistant Manager at Martins Bank Liverpool City Office, who has been able to
source the above photograph for us.
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