11-478 Liverpool Anfield

Martins Bank 1928+

Martins Bank’s branch at Anfield is opened 7 April 1931, and is listed in a Wartime Head Office Circular as closing in February 1942. It actually remains open until September that year and is closed due to a lack of trained staff.

In Service: 7 April 1931 until 22 September 1942

Image © Martins Bank Archive Collection

Advertisement Remastered May 2019

After just two full years of war, the demands of the Kennett Committee on employers to release able bodied staff to join the war effort, is causing the closure of businesses, including Bank branches, all over the land, and many of these offices will never re-open. Anfield Branch is heralded by advertisements in the local press, and starts life as a sub Branch to Liverpool Breck Road. We have not found any reference to Anfield or its staff in Martins Bank Magazine, but the Advertisement and the Bank’s Annual Report and Accounts for 1932 shows that Anfield is managed by Mr H T Fielding, who is also Manager of Breck Road. The legacy of the Bank of Liverpool is to have created a branch of Martins in just about every corner of the City of Liverpool, so why Martins feels the need to open another Liverpool Branch, and not to re-open it again after the War is something of a mystery. If you can help with images and/or information about this or any of Martins Bank’s 1000 Branch buildings, please do get in touch with us at the usual address gutinfo@btinternet.com.

Of the many and varied uses for former Bank branches in the twenty-first Century, Anfield’s role as “The Anfield Cheque Cashing Company” would seem appropriate!

It is interesting to note from the advertisement that the Bank is celebrating “ONE HUNDRED YEARS” – this refers to the founding of the Bank of Liverpool, and does not take into account the much longer association that Martin’s Private Bank had with the City of London, which dates back to 1563. This situation is rectified, when only thirty-two years later – in 1963 – Martins Bank is suddenly FOUR HUNDRED years old!