11-703 Ripon

1928R On 4 January 1928, just one day after the amalgamation of the Bank of Liverpool and Martins with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank, the newly created Martins Bank opens a branch at No 6 Market Place Ripon. Very little information is available about the running of this branch, and it is assumed that business does not really take off, as in 1935 Martins takes the decision to close it. At the time, the town of Ripon has three other banks, so the competition for customers will be strong - not least with Barclays next door to Martins, at No 7 Market Place. Martins never returns to Ripon, and in our list of competitor banks as at 1967/8 (below) the number of branch banks in the town has increased to five.

Ripon

In Service: 4 January 1928 until 28 February 1935

Extracts from Martins Bank Limited Annual Report and Accounts for 1928 © Barclays

2015 Ripon Exterior CU - S Walker MBA By 1970, two of these, the National Provincial and the Westminster will have merged with the District Bank, to created NatWest. Originally Martins Bank appoints Mr F A Benson as Manager at Ripon, but in 1932 the branch is downgraded and Mr G H Clark is appointed Clerk in Charge. We do not know which of Martins’ Branches would have acted as parent, although Harrogate seems to have been the nearest and only town with a Branch of Martins for miles around.

We were delighted when friend of the Archive Stephen Walker came across the lovely period image of Ripon – featured at the top of this page – which includes what is for now the only known sighting of the Branch. He also took for us this contemporary photograph of the building in Summer 2015. In our gallery at the bottom of this page, we do also have photos of two Martins staff members recorded in our Staff Database as having worked at Ripon. The Hull Daily Mail carries this short piece in its Financial and Commercial News section, annoucing the opening of Ripon Branch, and we also have a Phone Book entry from 1934.

Newspaper Image: Hull Daily Mail 5 Jan 1928

Image © Northcliffe Media Limited Image created courtesy

of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. Image reproduced with kind

permission of The British Newspaper Archive

Image © BT 1934

In the absense of a good image of Ripon branch, we do have one of Barclays, who occupied the premises of “Ripon Old Bank” next door to the original Martins office. By the time the image of Barclays was taken, the former Martins had become a butcher’s shop, which you can see in the contemporary colour image taken for us by Stephen Walker…