In 1928, when the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank merges with the Bank of
Liverpool and Martins, BOTH banks have a sub branch at Greetland. The Bank of Liverpool and Martins has
inherited one as a sub branch to Halifax,
from its 1920 merger with the Halifax Commercial Banking Company, and the
Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank brings its own as a sub branch to Elland. The latter is kept on, with the Halifax
Commercial Bank branch closing in February 1928, just over a month after the
merger that creates the modern day Martins Bank. Having been home to two banks – the Commercial and the Equitable -
Halifax itself plays a strong part in fashioning the Martins Bank we know
today.
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In Service: 1907 until Friday 26 February 1993
Image © Barclays Ref
0030-1120
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It has some influence on financial decisions for a number of years,
but it is the purchase in 1926 of
28/30 Park Row Leeds, and its later establishment as a Martins Dstrict Office
that puts paid to there being a valid argument for the creation or retention
of a Halifax District. Martins
Bank’s comprehensive coverage of Yorkshire is due to the number of individual
banks and their branches with which it has amalgamated over the years. The Yorkshire branches are, however,
scattered across several of Martins’ Districts, and it is this that actually
has the effect of making Leeds one of the smaller Districts of the
Bank…
We are grateful to
Martins Colleague and friend of the Archive, John robertshaw, for taking
his camera around this part of Yorkshire to obtain contemporary shots of
former Martins Bank Branches. Here we
are able to look in at FOUR stages in the life of the building - as a Branch of the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Bank in 1922, a Branch of Martins Bank in the 1960s, Barclays
Bank in 1972, and as a hospice shop in 2015…
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1922
Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections
W N Townson Bequest
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1960s
Image © Barclays Ref 0030-1120
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1972
Image © Barclays Ref 0030-1120
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2015
Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections
John Robertshaw
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