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 Before the creation of the modern day Martins Bank in
1928, the Bank of Liverpool and Martins has the district Head Office
structure with which we are familiar, but it is arranged a little differently
from the model that runs up to the 1969 Merger with Barclays. Manchester District is of course quite tiny
in the years before the amalgamation with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank
adds dozens of Manchester City and area offices, and it is run from the
former Head Office of the Palatine Bank.
There is also no district in Leeds – instead a collection of Yorkshire
Branches are controlled by a Halifax District. On this page, we take a brief look at the
structure of these two Districts, both of which face major reorganisation and
relocation, and one of which faces a change of name …
Manchester - The District run from a Palace…
  In 1919, the merger of the Palatine Bank’s Branches into
the Bank of Liverpool and Martins gives the Bank its original Manchester
District, with 22 Brown Street, the former Palatine Bank Head Office in
charge as Manchester District Office for about nine years. Following the
creation of Martins Bank Limited in 1928, the district grows several times
over with the addition of well over one hundred Branches of the Lancashire
and Yorkshire Bank. The location of
that Bank’s former Head Office in Spring Gardens makes for a better placed
District Office, and 22 Brown Street has to lose its status as the hub of
Manchester District.
Brown Street does however remain a key Branch – it is home for a while
to Manchester Foreign Branch, and right up to the 1969 Merger with Barclays,
its Staff Dining Room caters for large numbers of staff in the City. Barclays soon realises the sheer cost of
running this palatial building, and its days as a Bank come to an end in
1971. The Branches listings of the original 1919 Manchester District, as
published in that year’s Annual Report and Accounts, provide a handy way of
knowing exactly which ones came to the Bank of Liverpool and Martins as
original offices of the Palatine Bank:
Extract from
the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Annual Report and Accounts for 1919 ©
Barclays
Halifax – a district found, but lost again…
  The establishment of a Halifax District in 1920 would seem
to be an entirely sensible move, after all the Bank of Liverpool and Martins has
just absorbed the Halifax Commercial Bank, including its former Head Office
at 2 Silver Street, Halifax. At this
time, the Bank has a much smaller connection with the city of Leeds. Like
Manchester’s majestic Brown Street office, (but on a slightly smaller scale),
Silver Street Halifax really does look the part, and easily takes on the role
of the new District’s Chief Office. As
the 1920s progress however, the new owners – The Bank of Liverpool and
Martins – begin to have stronger ties with Leeds. Despite the misgivings of
staff and management in Halifax, who had long cherished the idea of having
their own District, it makes sense to
create a new Leeds
District. This will of course come at
a price – the Bank cannot justify running two District offices so close
together in control of a relatively small number of branches, and power is
transferred to Leeds in 1927 when a hitherto rival Halifax Bank – the
Equitable – is absorbed along with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank,
creating the modern day Martins Bank.
2 Silver Street remains open as a Branch of the new Bank until the
Second World War, when having been mothballed in 1940, it is closed
permanently from 1946. Our Thanks to Steve Gee for this image of 2 Silver
Street Branch in all its glory in 1930. The Branches listing of the original
1920 Halifax District, as published in that year’s Annual Report and
Accounts, shows us the offices of the Halifax Commercial Bank that were
subsumed by the Bank of Liverpool and Martins:
Extract from
the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Annual Report and Accounts for 1920 ©
Barclays
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