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 Martins Bank has always produced most of its own stationery, apart from
a few specialist items - notably cheques
- which need to have security features built in. There have been three different locations
for the department - from before World
War I until the opening of Head Office in 1932, stationery was held at a site
in Pall Mall. Production of major
items of stationery then began from a new office in Liverpool’s Old Hall
Street. Finally 1969 a purpose built
unit at Birkenhead becomes Martins third home to stationery department, and
it produces stationery to meet the needs of the entire bank until the merger
with Barclays. Birkenhead continues to
be operated by Barclays, along with a second department in Northampton for
several decades until Barclays finally out-sources its stationery towards the
end of the twentieth century. On this page, we look back to 1948, and the
following article from Martins Bank Magazine which reveals a little of the
work of the department.
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WHY NOT ALSO VISIT THESE PAGES
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 The Bank had a Stationery Department for some years prior to the
1914 war: it consisted of a staff of two, with a messenger giving part-time
service for packing. Reorganisation into its present form did not take place
until 1930 after the last major amalgamation with another bank had taken
place and the attendant problems of accountancy which, of course, involved
standardisation of forms, had been solved. The removal from Pall Mall to the
present premises in Old Hall Street took place about the same time as the
opening of the new Head Office in 1932, and it was following the removal to
Old Hall Street that the Bank first started printing certain items of its own
stationery by means of a Multigraph machine which was supplemented three
years later by another. Early this year a third machine, a Multilith, was
added. While the two previous models required the setting of type by hand,
the new machine is of the Photo Offset pattern. The method used is to take a
photograph of any form that may be required. A photographic print is then
made on a prepared zinc sheet from which the actual printing is done. By this
process the continual setting and distribution of type is dispensed with.
Once a zinc plate becomes worn a new one can be made from the negative.
 The annual requisitions from the branches are staggered and
distribution commences early in January and is continued, District by
District, throughout the year. Upon receipt at the Department of a branch
requisition it is passed to the storekeeper who proceeds with a truck along
the various aisles of shelving on which the different forms are kept in
numerical or alphabetical order. The various items are then loaded, after
which the completed order is taken to the packing department. The volume of
stationery required by the whole Bank in the course of a year is colossal.
Last year some thirty million printed forms were used and over five million
envelopes, while about six million coin bags are needed in the course of a
year. To handle the volume of work which the supplying of close on 600
branches necessitates, an office staff of two men and two girls is needed,
and another four girls are needed to operate the machines. The packing
department occupies four men and the warehouse a fifth.
 The Manager is Mr. R. G. Evans, who entered the service as
Assistant Stationery Clerk in 1920 after serving his time to the trade with
Messrs. B. Haram & Co., of Birkenhead. He became Manager of the
department in 1946 after the retirement of Mr. J. Clayton. In these days of
short supplies, quotas and priorities the task of supplying the needs of the
branches is exceedingly onerous, and it is pleasant to be able to record in
all sincerity that it is the experience of every Branch Manager that his requirements
are treated with that courtesy and desire to please which always
characterises the best service. Mr. R. K. Currie is a comparative newcomer to
the department, having joined it in 1946, after service at Liverpool City
Office, Myrtle Street. Clubmoor. Foreign and Head Office Relief Staff. Mr.
Currie was previously on the staff of Williams Deacons Bank at
Levenshulme. Of the girls Miss Barr
has been there the longest. After education at Girtonville College, Aintree,
she entered the service in 1934 as a multigraph operator and has been there
ever since. Miss Greaves was educated at New Brighton High School and came
into the Bank in 1941 in Stationery Department. Miss Everson was educated at
Notre Dame High School. Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, and entered the Bank and
the department in 1946. Miss Pinfold was educated at Westminster High and
Commercial School and Shrewsbury Technical College entering the service in
1944 at Walton Branch. She was transferred to Stationery Department at the
end of 1946. Miss Brisk was educated at Blackburne House and entered the Bank
in Stationery Department in September of last year. Miss Hardman also
entered the service in September, 1947 in Liverpool City Office, being
transferred to Stationery Department in April of this year. She was educated
at Childwall Valley High School. The personnel of the packing department
consists of Messrs. Whinnet, Chick, Davies and Peel. Mr. Banks is at the
warehouse.
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