|
On 1 November 1968 Martins Bank Limited becomes one of the
Barclays Group of Companies – a status maintained until close of Business on Friday
12 December 1969. The following Monday, 730 branches of the bank will open
their doors under the name of Barclays.
As we find ourselves in times tinged with the sadness of the closure
of hundreds of Bank Branches, including those that are former Martins Bank
Branches, we really do appreciate the continued support of our
ever increasing band of loyal visitors and contributors. There are now fewer than 100 Branches of
Martins Bank still open, and to mark their passing, our Branch Watch feature
now includes a separate page featuring
details of THE LAST 101 BRANCHES. Our most recent news stories are shown below, and you can
catch up with some previous stories in-depth, by downloading our half-yearly
Newsletters (see above). The
Spring/summer newsletter for 2019 will actually appear towards in January,
in order that we can commemorate the anniversary of a defining moment in the
history of the Bank. – see “cut and thrust” below… Don’t forget to visit our sister site -
Lewis’s Bank Archive - which tells the story of Britain’s department store
bank for the nine years that it was a subsidiary of Martins Bank. Click HERE to visit the Lewis’s Bank
Archive web site (opens in a new window).
|
|
The “Pink Circulars” are
here!
Fifty
years ago, from the 7th of February,
Martins Bank issues a series of Integration Circulars. Printed on pink
paper, each circular comes with yet more instructions to staff on how the
various methods of accounting and working will be integrated between
Barclays and Martins, so that by the Appointed Day – 15 December 1969 – the
remaining 730 Branches of Martins will turn “seemlessly” in those belonging
to Barclays… The first unassuming
circular is actually SEVEN pages long and deals with the knotty issue of “undivided
profits” –
“As a preparatory stage in bringing the
accounts in this ledger into line with those in use in Barclays Bank the
following changes are to be made at the close of business on Wednesday,
19th February, 1969, after balancing the General Ledger”…
The rest is left to those
in whose blood flows the machinery of manual accounting systems. Not for
Martins’ Staff the luxury of pocket calculators or computer programs to
merge everything, THIS work will be achieved on paper, in the neatest
handwriting, and probably not without several well aimed curses…..
|
Ellesmere Port Thursday 25 May 1944
It is not often that we
can date a photograph to the exact  year, let alone the
month and the day too. We were
delighted to receive this wonderful atmospheric image of the Bank’s Ellesmere
Port Station Road Branch from Craig Turner, a regular contributor to the
Archive.
The photograph shows his
father, Peter Turner aged just sixteen, and standing rather nervously at the
side of someone we have so far been unable to identify, smiling and counting
up the banknotes! A notice for the May Bank Holiday – 29 May 1944 is on the
wall behind them, and above Peter’s head is the actual date, the 25th. Images
of Ellesmere Port’s original Branch of Martins Bank are extremely hard to
come by.
Whilst plenty of photos
exist of the newer Whitby Road Branch which opens in 1966, there are no
period photographs of either the exterior or interior of Station Road in the
Barclays collection. This newly found
photograph will shortly take its place on our Ellesmere Port page, and in the
meantime, if anyone can hazard a guess as to the identity of the cashier on
the left, please do get in touch with us at the usual address – gutinfo@btinternet.com
The “cut and thrust” of competition…
|
Click on image to read/download
|
Our 2018 Autumn/Winter
Newsletter was produced a month
or so earlier than usual, to allow for this special 2019 Spring/Summer
edition. It focuses on a story from
January 1959 which sees TWO major developments in
British banking being forced into existence through the cut and thrust of
competition. At the beginning of
1959, Martins Bank is just a few weeks from opening Britain’s first
Drive-In Bank at Leicester. The story has already aroused a good deal of
interest in the national press, when on 5 January, Martins’ rival the
Westminster Bank not only beats Martins to it, they also open Britain’s
first drive in bank on Martins
Bank’s home soil of Liverpool!
Recollections from the time talk of “incandescent” Martins Directors
swearing to “get even” with the competition by staging another, similarly
lavish project. Martins’ revenge on its rival is truly still having
repercussions in today’s banking World. Our special feature DRIVE-IN
BANKING 60 YEARS ON is now also available – simply click on the
leaflet above, or visit our DRIVE-IN
BANKING section.
|
Click on image to to visit this feature
|
ECHOes of the past…
The Liverpool ECHO newspaper
is almost as old as one of Martins Bank’s  founding entities, the Bank
of Liverpool. Throughout the life of the modern day bank – 1928 to 1969 – the
ECHO was the preferred organ of communication for the Bank, as they spread
out across the country opening more and more new branches. It was a good way
of letting customers and shareholders know of its successes. At the time of
the celebrations marking 400 years since Martins Private Bank was founded in
London, the ECHO produced a lavish four page spread bringing congratulations
to the bank from many local and national companies who  were either customers of
Martins, or who had supplied equipment and services to them over the years.
Once again it is the Liverpool ECHO that we must thank for this spread over
the weekend of 24/25 November 2018 alerting former staff and customers to the
planned reunions next year which will mark fifty years since Martins and Barclays
were merged. The wording from the article is reproduced below with the kind
permission of the LIVERPOOL ECHO. Paddy Shennan, who wrote the
article is also asking for anyone who knows Brenda Carter, the cashier who
was first to demonstrate Martins Auto Cashier machine to contact him at paddyshennan@liverpooleecho.co.uk
 AS former
members of staff plan a reunion in Liverpool, here's a chance to see how the
famous Martins Bank looked in Water Street more than 60 years ago. We also
feature an ECHO cutting from 10 years later - October 31,1967 – which
revealed that Martins in Church Street had become the first bank in the north
of England to offer its customers instant money - courtesy of its new “auto
cashier" machine. And looking ahead, December 12, 2019 will mark the
50th anniversary of the merger of Martins and Barclays Banks. Martins was the
only major clearing bank to have its head office outside London, and was
based at 4 Water Street in Liverpool. The Grasshopper Pensioners’ Club (a
social organisation, supported by Barclays, for the benefit of those who
worked for Martins) is in the process of planning two or three events next December
- one in London, a second in its "spiritual home” of Liverpool and a
third elsewhere in the north of England, its “true heartland” subject to
demand. In a message to his former colleagues, secretary David Baldwin said:
“If you are reading this note and worked for Martins Bank, perhaps you will
recall anticipating working for a different bank on the following Monday and
were probably wondering what the future would hold for you. You may also have
wondered why on earth the (Barclays) Eagle had swooped on our beloved
Martins.
 “Almost 50 years
on and despite the passing of time I am certain that our memories of working
for Martins remain precious to us all and always will. We were all much
younger then and had careers to forge. With those pressures gone, perhaps we
will have time to meet again on the 50th anniversary of the final day of
Martins’ existence (Thursday December 12, 2019) to remember the end of an era
and reunite with former colleagues. “It might be viewed as the 'Last Supper’
but I certainly hope not, as I am certain that we all value friendships both
old and new which were forged by working for Martins, and as long as some of
us are still alive we will ensure that the name of Martins Bank will continue
to be remembered as ‘The bank that went to extremes to be helpful’’ Former
Martins employees can contact David Baldwin if they are interested in
attending, by emailing him at grasshoppers@btinternet.com – while more
information can be found at www.martinsbank.co.uk The photographs here, meanwhile,
show the horseshoe-shaped area in the Water Street bank, and David explains:
"There was a tie, known as The Horseshoe tie, which could only be owned
and worn by those members of staff who actually worked inside 'the horseshoe'
- the name given to the enclosed workspace behind the counter." And then
there is the photograph (below) and story headlined NOW - INSTANT MONEY!
Regarding the revolutionary move by Martins Bank in Church Street, the ECHO
reported – on October 31, 1967 - that "day or night, all the customers
need to do to get £10 is feed a plastic card in an automatic machine outside
the bank, record a special code on a push button panel and out pops the money
in a sealed packet." A sealed packet? Luxury! The story added that bank
officials were confident it was thief-proof, while the cost of the machine
was £1,600 plus £500 needed to fund its installation. The photograph featured
Miss Brenda Carter, a senior cashier at the bank – if Brenda or anybody who
knows her is reading this, please get in touch with
paddyshennan@liverpooleecho.co.uk
ANOTHER first for Martins Bank!
Considering that in terms of size,
Martins was always regarded as being in the “little six” of Britain’s eleven
1960s clearing banks, it brought about an astonishing number of FIRSTS, the
effects of which can still be felt today. From being first to introduce
bi-lingual cheque for Welsh speaking customers, to choosing and adopting
first the methods for the compuerisation of cheques which having lasted fifty
years are only just about to be superceded by a new system in 2018. You can read about Martins Bank’s Firsts on
our special feature page, but here is another one showing an early commitment
to the provision of facilities for disabled staff. Martins Bank becomes the first
bank to adapt its telephone answering equipment for use by a blind
telephonist, when its rebuilt branch at 20 Fawcett Street Sunderland re-opens
on 22 February 1965. Martins Bank Magazine publishes the following
short piece in its “News from the Districts” section…
 PABX
at Sunderland.
Sunderland branch occupied their modernised
premises on February 22nd and in the new office is a PABX No 1
Telephone Installation, specially adapted for use by a blind operator, Mr J.
Carr. The Blind Persons Resettlement Officer of the local Ministry of Labour
office says that so far as he is aware this is the first installation in this
country to be so adapted. Mr Carr, who received two half-days’ instruction in
the new equipment, is fully confident that he can manage it.
Banking in post-war Liverpool
 Following the destruction of
large areas of the City of Liverpool during World War 2, a number of housing
estates were built to accommodate those who were displaced. In the new towns
of Kirkby and Croxteth, there was plenty of housing, new schools and even new
churches, but amazingly very few shops. In 1957 Martins Bank already had a
sub-branch on Kirkby’s industrial estate, but no service close enough to be
able to serve those living in the new housing
estates. A permanent branch was planned for Kirkby, but this could not be
realised until 1961. In the meantime
the Bank’s fleet of mobile branch caravans stepped in, and on 16 September
1957 they rolled up first in Southdene, Kirkby, and later that day at Moss
Way Croxteth to provide a full banking service to the local people. Two areas of ground were reserved and signs
like the one pictured here were erected, to inform customers of when the
caravans would be in attendance. You
can read more about this special service on our Kirkby
and Croxteth Mobile Branch page, which includes a restored version of the
local newspaper advertising taken out by the bank, and the Memories of Sir
Brian Pearse, who worked on the service when it began. Banking on housing estates had also been
tried out around the same time in Plymouth, and this led to the establishment
of a sub-branch at Ernesettle.
500 Golden Eggs?
 When Martins and Barclays
were merged, the richest pickings for Barclays, apart from a large number of
well appointed Branches, almost 100 of which are still in business today, was
the acquisition of Martins Bank’s Trust Company and its amazing Unicorn Bonds
and Unit Trusts. The Bank told its staff that investing in Unicorn was “like
putting 500 eggs in one basket”! We have recently added to our Martins
Unicorn feature page, several advertisements from 1967, where the benefits of
the Unicorn schemes are explained to customers. This was an extremely
successful campaign, as it was able to provide details of the stunning
performance of these Unit Trusts in their first ten years of life. Investors
whose income was reinivested collected almost THREE TIMES their initial
investment. You can read about
Martins Unicorn, and its base at Unicorn House, Romford Road, and see the
original advertisements by clicking HERE.
Take three girls…
 We were thrilled to obtain a copy of this fabulous photograph from our
good friends at Barclays Group Archives. It shows three members of the staff
at Martins Bank’s Liverpool Computer Centre, Derby House, performing various
tasks with the mighty Ferranti Pegasus II computer, still in service after
nearly ten years of processing the accounts of the Bank’s Liverpool
customers. The wonderful Pegasus has nothing
that we might recognise from today’s computers, but it certainly does have an
air of 1950s sci-fi about it! The
nearest to a screen is the pair of oscilloscopes. The long and winding paper
tape on the left is used both for programming and input. The only thing that
looks familiar is the printer on the right.
There is a small mystery here – neither we nor Barclays know the names
of the girls in the photo. Perhaps one of them is YOU, or perhaps you know
who one or more of them are. If you can help, please do get in touch at the
usual address gutinfo@btinternet.com.
You can see more of Pegasus and learn about how Martins adapted it to handle
the daily work of forty branches by visiting our NEW
TECHNOLOGY feature. There, you will
find pages for LIVERPOOL
COMPUTER CENTRE and for the PEGASUS II COMPUTER.
News for family tree researchers…
 At Martins Bank Archive, we have been working
for more than a decade on our Martins Staff Database, which we believe to be
the only digitised archive of the staff who worked for the bank. With around
half a million entries, it is now a comprehensive record for the period
1946-1969, and the number of earlier records dating back to the late 1800s is
now also substantial. The vast
majority of the Staff members included are sadly no longer with us, and for
those who are we have made special mention on our DATA PROTECTION page, in line with new
rules which came into force on 25 May 2018. All of the information held has
already been in the public domain for a minimum of 50 years. Nearly all of it
was published and distributed in paper form to Martins Bank’s Staff in
“Martins Bank Magazine”. Our database brings together for the first time,
information which allows us to produce career details for those researching
their family tree, or those who want to remember their career with the Bank.
Information falls into several categories – New Entrant, Transferred,
Appointed, Married, Retired, Died. We are now in the process of adding
further previously published details including public service along with any
titles thus conferred, and details of training courses undertaken and Banking
or other relevant examinations taken and passed. If you would like to know what details we
have for you or a relative who once worked for the Bank, then please do get
in touch with us at the usual address gutinfo@btinternet.com.
 …and an appeal:
We are always looking
for head and shoulders photographs of staff as they were when they worked for
the Bank. Martins tended to publish mainly photographs of the MALE staff, and
we would like to redress the balance by being able to add images of female
staff members to the staff galleries which are shown at the bottom of nearly
all of our Branch Pages here within our Online Archive. Also - if you are the relative of a member
of staff who is no longer with us, and you would like to send us a photo to
be placed on each relevant Branch or Departmental page of our web site, then
please do get in touch with us at the usual address gutinfo@btinternet.com. It was the Staff that made Martins Bank so
special and fondly remembered, and the more faces we can add, the stronger
the collective memory will become.
Pictured
here is Sally Edge, Cambridge Branch, 1967.
50 Years On…
  December 2019 sees the
fiftieth anniversary of the day that more than 700 branches of the Bank that
had closed for the weekend as Martins Bank Limited, opened up again on the
Monday as Barclays. The Grasshopper Pensioners Club wants to mark this day,
and is currently looking for ideas from former Martins Staff Members. Please
click HERE
or on the Eagle and Grasshopper poster (left) to open a copy of a letter
issued by Club Secretary Dave Baldwin to ALL Barclays Pensioner Clubs so that
Martins members can make suggestions.
Your memories of merger day will also be important in the coming
months. Here on the Archive Web Site
we will be marking the anniversary by summarising the huge pile of pink
merger circulars that were issued, to match the days on which they were
issued to branches. Fifty years on, when we now have more technology at our
fingertips than we know what to do with, your memories of this major merger
are important documents of social history.
Therefore. WHATEVER you were doing, from answering the phone
with the wrong bank name to coping with merging daily processes, in branch or
department, or at Martins’ computer centre, we would love to hear from you.
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
of photographs for sale, showing scenes from the past and old buildings
including these four (and many more) 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 now 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, Thursday 31ST January 2019
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
|
