11-48-00 Batley

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Like so many of the branch buildings inherited by Martins Bank, this one at Batley is indeed a most grand affair, endowed with the sort of ecclesiastical look that is so very popular with so many of the Banks of the late 1800s. Today, this building would be impracticably large to use as a bank, so we will stay back in time where it is 1876 – still some twenty-six years before the absorption of the West Riding Union Bank by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank.

At this time the West Riding Union Bank has been trading well, building up good reserves and surplus funds sufficient to be able to build a number of new branches, and a brand-new office of the West Riding Union Bank is built at Hick Lane, Batley.

It speaks volumes, and serves as a good lesson to today’s banks and governments, that the West Riding Union puts money aside for the bad times.

Most Banks will have “reserves” and contingency monies, but many overstretch themselves financially, hence the constant round of mergers and amalgamations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries.

In 1878 a large number of local businesses founder and the West Riding Union Bank is actually able to absorb the losses incurred from its own resources.

In Service: 1876 until September 1998

Branch Images © Barclays Ref 0030-0129

There are ample funds with which to do this, and it would seem that the phrase credit crunch has yet to be coined in this very canny part of Yorkshire! For our somewhat short Batley feature, we wind forward to 1966, when Martins Bank Magazine bids farewell to Mr Slater, who has managed Batley Branch for some eighteen years…

1948 to 1966 Mr A Slater Manager MBM-Wi66P57.jpg 1966 04 MBM.jpg The informal presentation to Mr Slater of a table lamp and a cheque with the best wishes of past and present colleagues and friends marked his retirement as Manager of Batley Branch at the end of August.

His career began in Leeds in 1923 but from 1934 he had worked in the Manchester District. Apart from four years in H M Forces he had been Clerk in Charge at Manchester Fallowfield Branch from 1936 to 1948 when he was appointed Manager at Batley.

Just occasionally we can bring you images of a Branch as it looked under THREE separate owners. Thanks to W N Townson Bequest and Barclays’ Branch Photographs, we can see that very little changes over the years at this lovely little building…

1922 – Lancashire & Yorkshire Bank…

Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections – W N Townson

1940 – Martins Bank Limited…

Image © Barclays - Ref 0030-0129

1970 – Barclays Bank Limited…

Image © Barclays - Ref 0030-0129



*Mr A Crabtree* *Joined the Bank Here* *1908*	*Mr W A Fisher* *Joined the Bank Here* *1912*	*Mr I Binns* *On the Staff* *1923 to 1937*	*Mr F A A Beresford* *Manager* *1946 to 1948*	*Mr V R Norton* *On the Staff* *1946 to 1948*	*Mr A Slater* *Manager* *1948 to 1966*



*Mr G Kilner* *Joined the Bank Here* *1949 to 1951*	*Mr P F Sharpe* *Joined the Bank Here* *1952 to 1954*	*Mr J G Crossley* *Limited Authority* *1959 to 1969*	*Miss Yvonne Ineson* *Cashier* *1965*	*Mr E H Bennett* *Manager* *1966 onwards*