11-90-70 Grassington

When you ask a young child to draw a house, they usually come up with something that looks like Martins Bank’s sub-Branch at Grassington. It reminds us of a late 1960s childhood, and in particular the opening titles of BBC Television’s “Play School”. Another of Skipton’s many sub offices, Grassington provides a banking service for five hours a week in 1969.

Grassington

In Service: Pre 1906 until 24 May 2019

Image © Barclays Ref 0030-1097

The Bank’s connection with the village of Grassington goes back to the late 1700s, and the very foundations of the Craven Bank itself…

{The foundation partners of the Craven Bank in 1791 were William and John Birkbeck, William Alcock, John Peart, Joseph Smith and William Lawson. Their partnership helped to join in one credit area the small towns in the Craven District with which their families had been traditionally associated and in which they had pioneered rudimentary banking facilities – the Birkbecks of Settle, the Alcocks of Skipton, the Pearts of Grassington and the Lawsons of Giggleswick.} {John Peart entered banking through his accommodation of the clients of his practice as a solicitor. He was a partner in the Craven Bank from 1791 to 1835 and was succeeded by his son in law, William Robinson I, his grandson William Robinson II and his great grandson William Peart Robinson who was later a director of the Craven Bank Limited, of the Bank of Liverpool Limited, of the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Limited, and of its successor Martins Bank Limited.

One of John Peart’s descendants, R M Robinson* of Settle contributed the following account of his family in a letter of 2 October 1930 to the archives of Martins Bank: “The Pearts were a very old Grassington family. I have their pedigree from about 1600. The eldest sons lived at town End Grassington, a pleasant old house …on the way to Coniston … They were named William and Stephen alternately. John Peart was a younger son who went to Richmond to practise as a solicitor. His elder brother Stephen had a son William who went to London. I do not think that John Peart was ever a solicitor in Grassington, but his family banked with the Alcocks, and John Peart, becoming acquainted with the Birkbecks in Settle had a good deal to do with the amalgamation”.}

Text abridged from FOUR CENTURIES OF BANKING VOL II

© MARTINS BANK LIMITED 1968

*Feb 2011 - Editor: We are grateful to Tom Robinson who emailed in respect of the article above which claims that R M Robinson is a descendant of John Peart. Tom says: “R.M.Robinson was a son of Col George Robinson the first general Manager of the Skipton branch, and though relatives of John Peart, neither are direct descendants”