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Martins Bank’s Branch at Oswestry opens in May 1956, and is
placed within Liverpool District. Much
later, following the merger, Barclays has its own Local Head Office in Shrewsbury,
and the Branch will therefore be under a much more local Control. Martins Bank Magazine seems quite excited
at the prospect of visiting Oswestry, for two main reasons – the proximity of
the visit to the actual opening date of the Branch, and the fact that it has
been opened in an area where Martins faces a fair degree of competition.
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In Service: 3 May 1956
until March 1975
Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections
- Amanda McGregor
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That Oswestry will be closed less than twenty years after
it opened is, thankfully, not yet on anyone’s radar, and the Magazine sets
about commenting on the individual staff and their backgrounds, as well as
the prospects of this brand new Branch…
 We have never before visited a branch within a few days
of its opening and our visit to Oswestry
on May 7th was, therefore, an especially interesting experience. We once said
to Mr. Tarn, when discussing the
opening of new branches, that we would feel appalled at the prospect of
making a “go” of a new branch in a place where our competitors had been
strongly entrenched for years. His
reply has always stuck in our mind: “To me it would be a challenge”. This is surely the only possible spirit in which to storm
a fortress and, listening to Mr. S. B. Evans, as he enthusiastically unfolded
his plans for making a success of his first branch, it did us good to feel
the purpose-fulness and drive which he radiated. With men like this, willing
to put every ounce of energy and determination into the job, the virility and
future prosperity of the Bank is assured.
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Interior Branch Images ©
Barclays Ref 0030-2190
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Mr. Evans has certainly moved around. A native of Wem, he
entered the Bank at Blackpool, then served at various branches in the
North-Eastern District. A spell at the South Welsh branches followed,
interrupted by four years in India with the R.A.M.C. Then came seven years at
Taunton as second-in-command, after a few months in Liverpool, and then a
year in Wrexham while the new branch was being built. His roots are very much
in the district, where his father and grandfather were Welsh Congregational
ministers. He has farming relatives in Shropshire and Montgomeryshire and his
wife is a native of Llanerfyl, near Oswestry.
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Mr Morris, Mr Evans and Miss Ellis
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His second man is Mr. C. F. Morris, who entered the Bank in
1941: all his service up to now having been in branches in the Liverpool
District. The third member of the staff is Miss S. M. Ellis, who started
her career at Shrewsbury nearly a year ago, and is proving first class in
every way. She is, incidentally, organist at the Welsh Methodist Chapel. Our new branch occupies a very good position in the
centre of this extremely busy market town, which boasts of having one of
the six largest markets in the country. The office is very bright and
cheerful and has a welcoming air about it; and this is just what we want.
We had the
pleasure of meeting Mrs. Evans and their three children and, later, of
making a brief tour of the lovely surroundings of the town and of admiring
what is probably the unique view from the old racecourse, where the farming
activities are spread out for a bird's-eye inspection and are sharply
divided by the valley: one side entirely devoted to arable farming and the
other entirely to pasture.
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