Many of our larger city centre branches are known to those who work there as “City Office”. They offer the services of a branch, but they are, with the exception of Bristol City Office, housed in the same building as one of our District Offices. Customers can therefore benefit from the local decision making powers of the District Office, and do their everyday banking, all in the same place. Outside Liverpool, 68 Lombard Street London Office is our largest city branch, and on this page we look at the history of the building, and present our usual gallery of the faces of some of those who work there.

According to tradition, first a goldsmith's and then a banking business has been carried on at the sign of the Grasshopper, on this site, since 1563. The present building at 68 Lombard Street was built by Martins Bank in 1930, both as a Branch and as the London District Office of the bank. In its role as the bank’s principal London Office, 68 Lombard is home to a number of centralised departments including the London Clearing Department, which is featured separately HERE . We feature the staff and departments of London District Office HERE

HARD TO PICTURE 68 LOMBARD STREET IN THE 1960s

Lombard Street is itself so narrow, that it is practically impossible to obtain a front view photograph of No 68. The two pictures below, taken in Summer 2009 at sunset, show just how magnificent the building (which hasn’t been a bank since 1983) still is. x

The site at 68 Lombard is so steeped in history, that in 1930 Martins Bank publishes a booklet whose main purpose is to explain just why the building is to be pulled down and rebuilt! (See also THE REBUILDING OF 68 LOMBARD ST ). The booklet itself however serves also as a useful guide to the history of the site. The text is reproduced below, along with some of the images that show the history of banking on the site from its beginnings with Sir Thomas Gresham in 1563.

ARTINS BANK has been compelled by the needs of modern business to pull down a structure full of old associations, and covering the sites of many ancient houses, offices, and taverns, in order to erect a new building capable of meeting the demands of the present time.

With the help of the Architect, Sir Herbert Baker, an attempt has been made to preserve the old traditions, in the belief that those who do business in the twentieth century at the sign of the Grasshopper will be interested in the past records of what may well be the oldest Banking House in the City of London.

Lombard Street has been the financial centre of London from the earliest times, and is mentioned by name in a Charter of Edward II in 1319, confirming certain land "abutting on Lombard Street to the South and towards Cornhill on the North" for the Merchants of Florence. These Italian Merchants, or Lombards, were the chief rivals of the Jews in transacting the financial affairs of Europe, and the head of a Lombard wearing the traditional cap of his race is carved on the keystone of the centre window of the third floor.

Today Lombard Street denotes the London Money Market and a mythical figure of a Discount Broker is carved above the door in Change Alley East, with a classical inscription showing the respect of the Market for the Bank.

The Entrance Hall

By the reign of Henry VII this quarter was so well established as the meeting place of the principal merchants, that a proposal that they should move from Lombard Street to Leadenhall Street was negatived by the Common Council. A few years later Sir Richard Gresham tried to establish an Exchange in Lombard Street but it was left to his more celebrated son, Sir Thomas Gresham, to found the Royal Exchange on the North Side of Cornhill. Sir Thomas Gresham, a Mercer and not a Goldsmith, was the trusted agent of Mary and Elizabeth in the low countries and has always been considered the first English Banker to understand the working of the Foreign Exchange. From him is derived the sign of the Grasshopper which hangs from the wall to this day. In the i6th century the houses in a street were distinguished by signs - the houses in Lombard Street were not numbered until 1770 – and Gresham used his family Crest to mark his residence in the City.

x The exact date of his acquiring this site is not certain. Tradition has it that a Banking business has been carried on here since 1563, but we know that he lived here in 1560, for in April of that year he wrote to Cecil "I have commanded my factor Candellor to be with you by VI of the clocke in the morning every morning, for that I have no man ells to do my business and to keep Lombard Street." x

About this time the name of Martin first appears in the lists of prominent citizens of London. In 1558 Richard Martin was called to the livery of the Goldsmiths Company, and in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, he served as Lord Mayor and was knighted. He was also Master of the Mint from 1572 until his death in 1617, and without doubt he had frequent transactions with Gresham, thus beginning the association of the Martin family with the Grasshopper, which has continued to the present day.

The Parlour

The Coats of Arms of the families of Gresham and Martin are carved above the two large windows in the Lombard Street facade. Owing to the destruction of almost all the Title Deeds of this part of the City in the Great Fire of 1666, and the loss of the remaining early records of the Bank in 1825 in the disastrous fire in the Royal Exchange, where they had been deposited for safety, it is difficult to trace accurately the occupation of the Grasshopper during the first half of the 17th Century. We know that Edward Backwell, a prominent Goldsmith, carried on his business at the Grasshopper and at the adjoining property, the Unicorn, from 1662 until 1672, when King Charles II laid hands on nearly £300,000 of Backwell's money, which with that of other Goldsmiths, had been deposited in the Exchequer. Samuel Pepys, the Diarist, kept his account with Backwell, and it is probable that from 1672 until 1680, when he transferred his business to Mr. Richard Hoare of Fleet Street, he kept an account with Charles Duncombe, Backwell’s. successor, who appears to have had timely warning of the closing of the Exchequer. x

x He had formerly been Backwell's apprentice and took over Backwell's lease of the Grasshopper and of the Unicorn, carrying on a Goldsmiths business in partnership with Richard Kent and later with his brother, Valentine. The Goldsmiths were by this time beginning to do a regular Banking business as we now understand it, and in a supplement to "The Little London Directory" published in 1677, there appears a list of "Goldsmiths that keep running cashes." Among these are mentioned " Charles Duncombe and Richard Kent, of the Grasshopper in Lombard Street." Pepys in his Diary has a few words to say of their transactions, complaining of " the Goldsmith's shops, where people are forced to pay 15 or sometimes 20 per cent, for their money, which is a most horrid shame, and that which must not be suffered."

The Board Room

Garraway’s Coffee House

In this connection it is interesting to note that certain books of account, which in these days of machine accounting go by the prosaic name of Waste Books, were, until a very few years ago, known as the Goldsmiths Books. In 1686, the name of Richard Smythe appears as a partner of the Duncombes and Kent, and his portrait, attributed to Huyssmann, is hung over the fire-place in the Parlour. Before his death in 1699 Richard Smythe took into partnership a connection of his wife's, Andrew Stone, and also engaged as Clerk, Thomas Martin, who became a partner four years later.

From this time until 1852, when Mr. George Stone left the firm, the business at the Grasshopper was mainly conducted by members of these two families, and the present Chairman of the London Board is a representative of the sixth generation of the family whose name is preserved in the title of the Bank. On the ceiling of the Parlour appear the Coats of Arms of Stone and Martin together with those of Gresham and Backwell, providing an interesting record of those who conducted their affairs in former centuries in the very place where the Managing Directors sit together to-day. On the cornice round the Banking Hall the old names mark the sites of the original buildings, which one by one have been added to the Bank during the last two hundred years.

The frieze above is decorated with the Coats of Arms of Trading and Livery Companies, with which those who carried on their business in these buildings were connected. On the Walls of the Entrance Hall are displayed the Fire Arms which were kept in the 18th century to protect the valuables of the Bank and its customers. Today the Bank's reserve of Notes is kept in reinforced concrete Strong Rooms on the second and third floors below the ground. It is interesting to compare the old method of keeping the reserves of gold and silver shown in the folio wing Cash Statement of two hundred years ago. The "Little Iron Chest" mentioned is now to be seen in the Banking Hall.

The firm of Stone and Martin in 1706 only rented the Grasshopper, which extended over little more than the present Parlour, and it was not until 1741 that James Martin purchased the freehold, together with that of the adjoining property, The Three Crossed Daggers.

At the beginning of the 18th Century the space afforded by the Royal Exchange had become too limited to accommodate the men of business who frequented it, and Change Alley, with its numerous taverns and Coffee Houses, became the centre of the speculative activity which ended with the collapse of the South Sea Bubble in 1720.

Bakers Chop House

Thomas Garraway is said to have established here the first Tea House in London, and in Swift's poem " The South Sea Project" Garraways is referred to as the headquarters of the dealers and brokers who preyed upon the public. Defoe too, in 1722, speaks of Garraways as the haunt at Mid-day of people of quality who had business in the City. Later it became a noted Auction Room, before, in 1866 it was acquired by Messrs. Glyn & Company and finally in 1874 passed to Martin and Co. in exchange for The Plough, No. 67, Lombard Street, which had been bought by James Martin nearly a hundred years previously. In 1700 Garraways Coffee-House abutted westwards on the Crown Alehouse, and beyond this, at the corner of Change Alley, stood the Exchange Tavern. To the south of these lay Bakers Chop House, formerly known as the Rummer Tavern. The freehold of all these properties was acquired by Martin and Co. in 1882 and 1884, but Bakers Chop House kept its identity until only ten years ago when the increase of business made it essential that this last survivor of many taverns should be thrown into the Offices of Martins Bank.

The Unicorn, which had parted company from the Grasshopper after the time of Backwell and Duncombe, changed hands on many occasions, but finally after a lapse of over two hundred years was bought by Martin and Co. in 1890. The other old Inn whose name is inscribed on the wall of the Banking Hall, is The White Horse, which after several changes of ownership is now occupied by Martins on a long lease from their neighbours, Lloyds Bank. The changes and the steady growth of the premises are of little account when compared with the expansion of the business. The Goldsmiths shop developed into the private Banking Firm, and in 1890 this became Martin's Bank, Limited. In 1918 the name was changed again, the Bank of Liverpool and Martins being the title assumed on the amalgamation of Martins Bank with the Bank of Liverpool. The incorporation of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank in 1928 led to the shortening of this unwieldy title. In the Bank's Coat of Arms the Liver Bird representing Liverpool is associated with the Grasshopper, while the old historical traditions of Lombard Street are preserved in the name of Martins Bank.

68 Lombard Street Before the Rebuild

Mr D O Maxwell On the Staff 1924

Mr F O’M Waite On the Staff 1925 to 1933

Mr E J A Salmon Joined the Bank Here 1928 to 1947

Mr S G Height On the Staff 1931 to 1933

Mr A H C Pickering Accountant 1944 to 1960

Mis R W Everitt Cashier 1945 to 1946

Mr W Kelly Assistant Manager 1945 to 1958

Mr M C Thomas Pro Manager 1946 to 1962

Mr D Cottingham On the Staff 1947

Mr J S Summerfield Manager Spring to Autumn 1949

Mr H A Bullough Manager Autumn 1949 to 1963

Mr B B Harrington Joined the Bank Here 1949 to 1962

Mr F J Triptree pro Manager 1950 to 1963

Miss W M T Hill On the Staff 1954

Mr G W Joiner Assistant AManager 1958 to 1967

Mr R P Gordon Assistant Manager 1960 to 1961

Mr L V Rorke Pro Manager 1962 to 1967

Mr F L Flanaghan Manager 1963 to 1967

Miss H E Weatherhead Manager’s Secretary 1964

Mr J N Edgar Deputy Manager 1964

Mr J F O Burgess Pro Manager 1964

Mr J S Davies Pro Manager 1964

Mr A F Sharp Assistant Manager 1965 Deputy Manager 1969

Miss I Pedley On the Staff 1965

Miss W Hillier Head Telephonist 1965

Mr A V Langton Assistant Accountant 1965

Mr D J Sims Pro Manager1965 Asst Accountant 1966

Mr M C Petitt Pro Manager 1965

Mr A J Bannister Senior Cashier 1966

Mr E A Emerson Pro Manager 1966

Mr E R Smith Pro Manager 1966

Mr J R C Chapman Pro Manager 1966

Mr S Brookes Assistant Manager 1966

Mr A S Potts Pro Manager 1967

Mr F J Blaker Pro Manager 1967

Mr J H Trigg Head Messenger 1967

Mr P J Hope Manager 1967 to 1968

Mr S J Smith Pro Manager 1967

Mr S W P Barter Manager 1968 onwards

Mr A S McKintosh Pro Manager 1969

Mr C A Bamford Assistant Manager 1969

Mr P J Dew Pro Manager 1969

Title:

London 68 Lombard Street Office

Type:

Main Branch

Address:

68 lombard Street London EC3

Opening Hours:

Mon-Fri 1000-1500

Saturday 0900-1130

Telephone:

01-626-6568

Services:

Nightsafe Installed

Automated Accounts

Manager:

Mr S W P Barter

© gut informiert! 2007 to date

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