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SPRING/SUMMER 2017

WELCOME to July at Martins Bank Archive, and to MARTINS BANK MAGAZINE – our news feature in honour of the Bank’s staff publication, which from 1946 to 1969 brought news of changing times, new Branches and services and even new technologies to Staff in England Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man… Our latest news stories are shown below, and you can catch up on some previous stories in-depth by downloading our half-yearly newsletters.

More Branches Found…

We have recently added three Branches to our Branch Network pages. Each of them represents an original branch building from which Martins relocated, either to a permanent site, or once a particular building had become too small or no longer viable because of location. At Northampton, Martins opened its first Branch at 17 WOOD STREET, before moving two years later to 18 the Drapery, a Branch that is still open today. At Fulwell, Sunderland, the original sub-Branch to Monkwearmouth Branch was at the fabulous address 16½ SEA ROAD (moving to 52 Sea Road in 1963). A Sheffield, the original Branch of the Equitable Bank at LEOPOLD STREET was used until 1930, when Martins moved into what were described as the best offices in Sheffield – Telephone Buildings, West Street. It will probably not be possible to find images of the original buildings, but as you will see from the article below about London’s Oxford Circus Branch, we never say never about these things!

Northampton Mercury and Herald 14 July 1939

Image © Northcliffe Media Limited Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD Image reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper Archive

A fourth “new” branch has also been identified, this time at Burnley. At the end of World War 2, the Bank takes out advertising in the local paper to let customers of Colne Road sub-Branch know that a temporary office would take its place. We are still researching this particular branch and trying to secure some exact dates before adding it to out Branch Network pages…

…and more Branches lost…

The march of progress has caught up once again with several former Branches of the Bank, as the reality of customers finding “other ways” to transact their business makes the maintenance of a branch network an expensive luxury. As you will see from our front page, seven Branches are for the chop this year, Padiham – one of the oldest and most beautiful of these buildings – closed in June, along with one of the newer Martins Bank Branches, Coventry Cheylesmore, which first opened for business in 1966. The remaining six will disappear between 7 July and 6 October. Those in the firing line are: As ever, we would like to pass on our thanks to all those who have worked at these branches down the years under a variety of Banks, including of course Martins and Barclays, but also going back to the days of the Craven Bank, Bank of Liverpool, Bank of Liverpool and Martins, Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank and the North Eastern Banking Company. IF you read this article earlier in the month you might remember only eight branches closing, sadly now Neston has been added to the list…

London’s “Crossrail” uncovers

Oxford Circus Branch!

We are by now used to finding information and images relating to Martins Bank’s Branches and Staff in many and varied locations, but it was a recent episode of BBC2’s “The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway” that led directly to some images of Oxford Circus Branch being recovered and added to our Archive. This is the first time that pictures of the Branch have been seen since the merger with Barclays in 1969. In order to compare the mammoth task of building Crossrail in the Twenty-First Century, the TV programme used clips from the records of British Transport Films, who documented the building of the Underground Victoria Line in the early 1960s. It was all beautifully shot on expensive colour film, and it unwittingly provided a wonderful social record of the time, showing thousands of ordinary Londoners going about their daily work routines. With the help of our friends at BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE, who own the rights to these particular British Transports Films, we were able to uncover two views of Martins Bank 251 Regent Street – Oxford Circus Branch – as it looked during the weekend of the August Bank Holiday 1963. Both images, - and this close-up – can be seen on our OXFORD CIRCUS BRANCH PAGE. The BFI Film Forever Project has done some amazing work over the last five years or so, preserving Britain’s filmed history for future generations, AND making much of it available to view, buy and own. You can visit their site, learn about their events and how to become a member of the BFI, by clicking HERE.

From “The Victoria Line Report Number 2 – Down and Along”

British Transport Films, August 1963 Images © BFI National Archive

50 Years of Cash…

Whilst a number of banks can claim to be instrumental in the introduction to the World of the “hole in the wall”, the honour of being first rests with Barclays by exactly eighteen weeks. Like so many other originally simple ideas, the notion of using a bank when it was closed was irresistible, and sparked a race, which fifty years on leaves us with a device that is taken for granted and used all over the World millions of times each day. Martins Bank was never one for resting on its laurels, and like Barclays, it enjoyed being “first” with many banking ideas and technologies. Its fingers were burned when in 1958 a rival bank opened a Drive-In Branch on Martins’ home turf of Liverpool.

As a result, Martins became the first UK bank to successfully demonstrate the use of a computer to record and process the day to day transactions of its customers’ current accounts, and went swiftly on to open its own Drive-In Branch at Leicester. Martins Auto Cashier, the first type of cash machine to use a plastic card, followed hot on the heels of Barclays’ machine, and was unveiled as “the first cash dispenser in the North of England”. At this point, neither bank was able to connect their machine to the computer, and rather like today’s pre-paid debit cards, the customer either paid up front and withdrew the cash later (Martins), or used and waited for a special cheque to debit their account (Barclays). You can read more about the introduction of the cash dispenser in our technology section under MARTINS AUTO CASHIER, and in Issue 3 of the Martins Bank Archive Newsletter, which is out now, and can be downloaded HERE.

A landmark year for a landmark building!

2017 sees the eighty-fifth anniversary of the opening of Martins Bank’s Head Office at 4 Water Street Liverpool. Whilst this iconic structure is no longer a bank, it is still being appreciated by audiences who see it featured in everything from blockbuster films to TV dramas. The latest of these was Stephen Poliakoff’s “Close to the Enemy” BBC2, November-December 2016. During 2017 we would like to feature memories of staff and customers, both of Martins Bank and Barclays Bank, for whom this building has a special place in their lives. You can message our Facebook page, tweet @archivebank or email us at the usual address gutinfo@btinternet.com.

Buyer Beware….

We have left the following article here once again for reference, to help explain the position regarding the theft of copyrighted images for the purposes of re-sale. There is a common misconception that if you can Google an image, then it is “in the public domain” and you can do what you want with it. Even some staff at eBay® believed this until they were recently put right – if you take or copy someone else’s work or property without their permission or acknowledgement, and sell it on to make even a penny out of it, this is breach of copyright, and the real owner can take legal recourse to stop further theft and misuse of their property. There are currently on eBay® a number of listings for photographs, showing scenes from the past and old buildings including these four Branches of Martins Bank. These images originated on our web site. As you can see, under our agreement with the owner, we prominently display copyright. These images have been copied and printed onto cheap photographic paper. The seller even has the gall to add their own watermark to the displayed images to prevent others from stealing them!!!

STAINLAND Image © Barclays	SITTINGBOURNE Image created by Martins Bank Archive and © Barclays	BURTON UPON TRENT Image © Barclays	WALLASEY Image © Barclays

As well as being against copyright law, these items are worthless, having little more than sentimental value – you will often find that collections and archives will make images available free of charge for private use, but you MUST check with them first. You should always check the seller’s right to copy the image – reputable sites such as eBay® do allow you to report copyright infringement. For ANY item of memorabilia, the best thing to do is shop around and compare prices – in the case of Martins Bank there are often up to twenty different items for sale on eBay® alone on any given day. For printed material which looks as if it has been copied, or actually claims to be a copy, ALWAYS question the seller about copyright.

Best Regards, Jonathan.

Westmorland, Friday 30TH June 2017

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 CONTINUED GENEROUS GUIDANCE, ADVICE

AND SUPPORT OF BARCLAYS GROUP ARCHIVES IN THE BUILDING AND SHAPING OF THIS ONLINE SOCIAL HISTORY.

R