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 For
many members of Martins Bank’s Staff, the Company is fondly remembered as
“Mungo’s Bank” in honour of Mr Mungo Conacher, the charismatic Chief General
Manager who takes the reigns at the end of 1955, and leads the Bank through
many of its most historic firsts and important changes. (The caricature of Mr Conacher seen here,
is drawn by a talented member of the Bank’s Staff, Mr W B Brookes, whose
excellent line drawn cartoons are used in many issues of Martins Bank Magazine). Mr Conacher’s reign is welcomed by many,
and he is seen throughout, to operate with a firm hand and a kindly
disposition. We still receive comment
today from staff who remember the sense of “family” that he engendered. So what is he really like? This question is one of several posed by
Martins Bank Magazine in its Autumn 1955 issue, in a feature published to
welcome Mr Conacher to his new role…
Our New
Chief General Manager…
  Seemingly unimportant remarks, promptly
forgotten by the speaker, are often remembered by the listener most
vividly. We remember one such remark
made by our new Chief General Manager, Mr M Conacher, when we offered our
congratulations on his appointment as Deputy Chief five years ago. “It’s a
great opportunity” he said. In that
remark lies a clue to the character of the man who, God willing, will be in
charge of the destiny of the Bank for the next decade and more. No one knows better than he, that
appointment to a great office is not the final achievement, but only the
beginning. All he has been given is
the opportunity to show his worth, though at least it is an opportunity
backed by the confidence and faith of his colleagues in his ability to lead
well and to decide wisely. We have
watched him closely for ten years now, and have seen how legend and fairy
tale have grown around him. The things
they say have probably been said about every great captain since the
beginning of time: here we deal only in facts, facts culled from our own
personal knowledge of him.
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What is he really like? Well, he has an uncanny knack of
being in the right place at the right time, of seeing at a glance the mistake
which everyone else has passed. He
takes an interest in everything, whether it be the choosing of sites for new
premises and their subsequent design, the examination of inspection reports,
the interviewing of prominent young men or of men under consideration for
appointment, the writing of the Bank’s advertisements, designing of security
measures or the lending of vast sums of money. His enthusiasm is boundless,
his energy prodigious and his ability to sum up his fellow men second to
none. To say that he is a shrewd banker
is almost to state the obvious for without this quality he could never have
aspired to his new position. In his
conduct of his own personal affairs he is strict but his somewhat austere
outlook on life is relieved by a basic quality of kindness and a broad
humanity which are revealed in action rather than in words for, although he
has been to Ireland, he has never kissed the blarney stone.
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1960: Mr Conacher meets the future!
Image : Martins Bank Archive
Collections
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During his time as Chief General Manager, Mungo
Conacher personally signs the
joining day/induction booklet, a personalised copy of
which issued to every New Entrant to the Bank…
Image © Martins Bank Archive
Collections
 He likes straight dealing and does
not tolerate anything else, and now that he has allowed himself to be
translated to that lofty and lonely eminence we know how hard he is going to
find it to relinquish some of the things in which he has always taken such a
keen personal interest, for he is a great believer in the necessity of having
a measure of personal control in all administrative work.
 However, his natural resilience
will come to his aid in coping with the new responsibilities and before long
we expect to hear him quoting Sir Winston Churchill’s words: “Those who are
charged with the direction of supreme affairs must sit on the mountain-tops
of control; they must never descend into the valleys of direct physical and
personal action”. Hearty congratulations and best wishes for great tasks
ahead.
Mungo Conacher’s signature is treasured by many staff
who still have their joining day booklet, and another legacy is his signature
as it appears on Martins’ Isle of Man £1 notes. Martins Bank is allowed to issue its own
banknotes on the Island until 1961, and many, like this example, bear the
unmistakable “mark of Mungo”. It
really is a valuable legacy too – in the Twenty-First Century these
banknotes change hands for hundreds of pounds, which at the time they were
first issued would have been a small fortune!
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A busy retirement?
 In 1966, after a career spanning almost FIFTY years,
is Mungo Conacher about to stop for a well earned rest? Well, yes, but only
partly as coupled with his retirement is his appointment to the Bank’s
Directorate, from where he can still keep an eagle eye on the goings on at
Martins Bank. Sadly things are about
to change forever, as Martins Bank has just two years of independence left.
As part of an article entitles “Changes at the Top” printed in the spring
1966 edition of Martins Bank Magazine, the Bank says farewell to Mr Conacher
the Chief General Manager, and hello to its new Director…
 soon after Mr Conacher's appointment as Chief
General Manager in 1955 we had occasion to propose a toast to him in the course of which we said 'Mr
Conacher and I have one thing in common—both of us have got
as far as we can in the Bank.' It is good to be proved wrong once in a while
and, as it happened, we were wrong in both cases. Nobody could have known
then that ten years later the Chief would become a Director of the Bank and
we would now be in the position of writing about his forthcoming
retirement. Much has been spoken about him in recent
months as Guest of Honour at the District dinners, and the faithful recording
of these tributes in the pages of the magazine has enabled a picture to be
built up of a truly remarkable man.
  Able, shrewd, kindly but firm, with unbounded
energy yet with the ability to switch off and relax at will. We could go on,
but those who have spent the last decade in the Bank know all that has
happened; those who have not, see the Bank as it is now. For that reason, we
prefer to look forward rather than back.
Probably five of our future Chief General Managers are already in the
Bank and they may read these words.
What then can they learn from the achievements of this remarkable
Scot? We offer some suggestions: self discipline; a real interest in other
people's thoughts and actions; an ability to get on with them and get the
best out of them; decisiveness; determination to make a first-class job of
every job, developing an eye for detail and knowing what is and what is not
important; marrying someone who will be a help and never a hindrance. Above
all, the ability to 'think big'. While
every Chief General Manager builds on the foundations laid by his
predecessors, he nevertheless stamps his own imprint on his work and lays his
own foundation for the future. We
hope that Mr Conacher will continue to serve the Bank for many years as a
Director and thus witness the harvest brought in from his own sowing. And we
wish him and his charming wife many years of good health, happiness and
well-earned relaxation.
This family copy of
the oil painting of Mr Mungo Conacher, commissioned by Martins Bank to be
hung at Head Office,
was specially
photographed for Martins Bank Archive by his Grandson, David Allison, October
2015.
 M
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