11-27-50 Lancaster

BARCLAYS BANK LIMITED

DISTRICT BANK LIMITED

Five Branches

Trustee Department

LLOYDS BANK LIMITED

MARTINS BANK LIMITED

Three Branches

MIDLAND BANK LIMITED

Two Branches

WESTMINSTER BANK LIMITED

UNITED DOMINIONS TRUST

WILLIAMS DEACON’S BANK

YORKSHIRE BANK LIMITED

The opening of NEW premises?

Image (1962) © Martins Bank Archive Collections

1962? Hang on a minute – this building was originally opened in 1868 by the Manchester and Salford Bank, acquired by the Kendal Bank in 1883, and through further amalgamations made its way to being a branch of Martins Bank!

In Service: 1868 until 25 April 2024

Branch Images © Barclays Ref: 0030/1540

These fine premises comprise a ground and three upper floors, and a basement containing the safes and other rooms. Altogether an ornate and impressing building, especially from the outside. However, by 1962 the interior was beginning to look somewhat outdated, and the decision was taken to move the staff to temporary premises across the road at No 53 Market Street, so that a quiet revolution of change could take place on the inside.

In with the new!

Thus the interior of Lancaster Branch is updated almost beyond recognition, using the most up to date designs and materials, and reducing the opression of dark wood by opting for smooth lines and bright lighting. The unwitting use of brown asbestos will however, come back to haunt the Bank’s new owners in the 1990s, when the branch’s next major refit has to first cope with the discovery and extremely careful removal of a substance known nowadays to be deadly. The 1990s update also took on the two uppermost floors of the building, which had never been fully utilised until Barclays needed to expand its operation at the site, and expand it did, into every one of the upstairs rooms. This is one of a long line of re-fits for Lancaster including two during Martins’ time. Lancaster’s sub-Branches include flagship new premises at LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, the LANCASTER FARMERS’ AUCTION MART, and the villages of CATON and HORNBY. Along with four more Branches in MORECAMBE, this area is well served by Martins Bank. In 1962 Lancaster customers are greeted first by this mosaic, one of a number of ARTWORKS specially commissioned by the bank. In the mid to late sixties, Martins updates the interior of Lancaster Branch almost beyond recognition, opting for same the smooth lines and bright lighting of the new Branch at Lancaster University.

…and out with old…

Lancaster Market St. old int (30-1540-11).jpg

Branch Images © Barclays Ref: 0030-1540

Roman Towns

Martins Bank’s 1949 Advertising Campaign features a series of drawings by the artist Geoffrey Wedgwood which depict the connection between various English towns and the Roman occupation of Britain. This was a long-running advertising campaign, with the advertisements a regular feature in British newspapers for almost seven years.

This advertisement features Lancaster Castle, and an explanation of the Latin words from which “Lancaster” is derived. Lunecastrum is said to have been an important Roman settlement. Amongst the other towns featured in this series of advertisements are WORCESTER, LEICESTER and BUXTON.

Goodbye Barclays – a MUSEUM piece?

At the time of the 1969 merger, many Martins Branches are NOT simply closed, or swapped for better equipped Barclays Branches in the same town. In fact TWENTY-TWO Barclays Branches are closed and the business moved into the local Martins Branches. In the North of England, where until 1969 Martins has been the predominant Bank, many Branches are large, modernised and ready for expansion. Barclays Bank Lancaster has until this time taken up about half of Lancaster’s old Town Hall, a building which nowadays is a museum. Our friends at Barclays have unearthed some rare images of what this part of the City is like in 1961. The following images show the Barclays Branch from the front and the side.

Image © Barclays Ref 0033.0932a

Image © Barclays Ref 0033.0932b

It pays to advertise…

When your main advertising market is newspapers and magazines, you need to be sure that your message gets through to as many readers as possible, in order to justify the expense of taking out an advert in the first place. Until Banks are allowed to advertise individually on TV at the end of the 1960s, they must use every available techinique to make their adverts stand out from those of the competition.

What seems to us nowadays like a very strange ban on banks advertising on television, there was what was referred to as “A gentlemen’s agreement” that it should not be allowed, unless its purpose was a joint message from ALL Banks. This smacks somewhat of snobbery, and doesn’t seem to fit with other prohibited advertising of that time – Undertakers were not allowed TV ads, nor were solicitors, and you couldn’t show the toilet bowl that the toilet cleaner was meant for, lest it might upset those of a delicate mind(!)

Martins is a little late is harnessing the huge youth market for banking products brought about by that rare phenomenon - full employment, but from 1964 onwards we start to see intelligent witty and occasionally surreal copy from the Bank that “goes to extremes” to help its customers. Before that, things were a little staid, like this generic ad used to publicise the whereabouts of the Martins Mobile Branch Caravans. Standard wording can be amended to fit the occasion, and room is left to cram in a mention of any number of local Branches of the bank. Otherwise, and at a quick glance, these ads will have been very difficult to tell apart from one another.

This reproduction is from the Bank’s original advertising copy, as used in 1959 to publicise the Bank’s prescence at the Lanaster Agricultural show. Whilst the advertisement clearly shows the address both of Lancaster Branch, and of the Bank’s Liverpool head Office, we can only hope that everyone knew where the Lancaster Agricultural Show itself was taking place, as the advert does not tell us!

Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections



Mr T A Fawcett Joined the Bank Here 1911 to 1915	Mr N E Cavendish Joined the Bank Here 1914	Mr H L Scholefield Joined the Bank Here 1917	Mr E Herd On the Staff 1922	Mr E M Nelson On staff 1930 to 1953 Pro Manager from 1946	Mr J Bainbridge On the Staff 1935 to 1936



Mr F R Alston On the Staff 1937 to 1939	Mr J G Young Accountant 1937 to 1946 Manager 1953 to 1964	Mr J Moffat Pro Manager 1938 to 1968	Mr E A Youdell Joined 1941 to 1943 Manager 1964 onwards	Mr H Lofthouse Joined the Bank Here 1941 to 1955	Mr J E Leake Manager 1943 to 1953



Mr J R Williams On the Staff 1946 to 1948	Mr J N Edgar On the Staff 1947 to 1951	Mr P C Towers On the Staff 1951 to 1953 Assistant Manager 1969	Mr M J M Anderton On the Staff 1951 to 1955	Mr W A Denton Pro Manager 1960 to 1963	Mr D G Brogden Pro Manager 1963 to 1966



Mr Rex H Abbott Joined the bank here 1965	Miss Pamela Whittaker Cashier 1966	Mr R N Mulholland Pro Manager 1966 to 1969	Mr N A Pritchard On the Staff 1967 to 1968