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Times
change, but on the outside, Kendal stays the same…
Kendal is
regarded as the senior Branch in Martins’ Northern District, and by the
1960s it sustains five sub-Branches in and around the town, as well as a
regional centre for Martins Bank Trust Company who have both a Trustee
Office, and a Tax Office here. The combined business provides employment
for more than 100 local people.
Kendal is a
busy market town which supports many industries including the making of
snuff and the famous Kendal Mint Cake.
It is also
home to K Shoes and Provincial Insurance, both of whom are major employers
in the area. Kendal is also gateway to the Lake District, and is populated
by tourists for much of the year.
Until the M6 motorway can be extended past the town, (which should
happen in about 1970) the A6 is a heavily used route for every kind
of vehicle. Consequently, patience
is a virtue in great demand both of drivers and pedestrians in the centre
of Kendal. Martins Bank’s Branch is
the Head Office of Wakefield Crewdson’s Kendal Bank, and although in the
twenty-first century a cash machine will sit at the bottom of the second
ground floor window, in the 1960s the unspoilt exterior of Kendal Branch is
captured in its full glory by the photo above.
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In Service: 1 January 1788 and still
open today as Barclays
The Bank of Liverpool
and Martins Kendal – sometime between 1918 and 1928
With thanks to JUMP INTO KENDAL and Jon
Robinson
Image © Barclays Ref 0030-1458
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To read more
about the long history of Kendal Branch - which dates back to the year 1788
- see also KENDAL – A HISTORY LESSON…
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Cash in the ashpit…
We begin our look
at Kendal Branch with a mystery from 1936 that has it all – the Branch, an
overnight rail journey, and the  matter of a
missing £500 in silver bullion – a small fortune back then.
The
circumstances are suspicious, and the Chief Constable of Kendal is
tight-lipped when it comes to theories about how the money first
disappeared. This article from the
Western Daily Press of 28 October 1936,
takes up the story…
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{ BULLION IN ASH PIT
Box Missed from Bank
Consignment
A box containing about £500 worth of bullion in silver
was found by Kendal, Westmorland, borough police yesterday in an ash pit at
Kendal Railway Station after a search which had lasted all night.
The box was part of a consignment of £10,000 which left
Martins Bank Kendal for the Bank of England. When the Load was checked at Carnforth,
15 miles away, one case was missing.
When this was reported, all available police were called
out and the bullion was found under some sacking. The Chief Constable of
Kendal declined yesterday to make a statement in view of inquiries which
were being made over an extensive field.
It was learned last night that the absence of the box was
discovered by the operation of the blue arrow system in which valuable
consignments are “wired” from station to station, an inspection being made
at each and the load carefully checked}.
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Image © Northcliffe Media Limited: Image created courtesy of
THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD - Image reproduced with kind permission of The
British Newspaper Archive
From an
earlier age to a brand new look…
Major refurbishment of Kendal Branch takes place in 1962,
and brings a stylish minimalist banking hall, with a comfy sofa, individually
lit customer writing desks, and zebra crossing style vinyl floor covering:
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Showing her age – Kendal in 1959…
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…re-born in 1962
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View from the glass
customer entrance
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The new banking hall in colour
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Customer Writing Desks
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The Left-Hand Counter
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Images © Barclays Ref
0030-1458
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In 1963, Martins Bank Magazine pays Kendal Branch a visit,
to see how things are going after such an amazing transformation. They also
feature staff from the Branch in further articles in 1954 and 1968. Across these varied stories, we shall find well ordered notice
boards, champion rose growers, a member of Air Training Corps, and endless numbers of staff, all
of whom are summed up as ‘a good lot’…
  however one looks at Kendal Branch it is not easy to appreciate that a
lot of history is tucked away behind the new teak veneer panels, the white
Italian granite and the vinyl tiled floors covering the spacious offices and
rooms. The gilded 'Kendal Bank' on the exterior might, however, give one a
clue. When Wakefield,
Crewdson & Company were taken over by the Bank of Liverpool in 1893,
their Head Office, 'The Kendal Bank', was on the site of the present Kendal
Branch and, additionally, their business comprised seven full Branches and
fourteen sub Branches in Westmorland, Furness and south-west Cumberland.
Although Kendal is now yet another of our Bank's Branches it is rightly
regarded still as the senior Branch in the Northern District and there are
those of an older generation who, even now, refer to it as 'Wakefield's
Bank'.
Mr Charles Clark, our Manager, sits at a highly polished desk
without drawers and manages to run his business efficiently, although one may
suspect that somebody gets terribly tired bringing things to him.
Nevertheless, the days of the sloping desks, bulky furniture, dark rooms and
stairs have gone for ever. The transformation took two years to accomplish
and those who worked through it must now feel that it was worth while. Any
who have had experience of Branch alterations 'with business as usual' will
feel greater sympathy than those who have only heard about these things. Walking round the Branch we thought it
would have been a pleasing gesture if, in designing the new office, a place
had been found to show in a panel the design of an oat sheaf surrounded by a
rake, scythe and sickle surmounting an inverted cornucopia from which fall
the various fruits of the earth—a design which
appeared on Wakefield, Crewdson & Company's cheques and which was as well known throughout the
north as the heifer was in the Craven District, or the grasshopper in the
south.
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← Kendal Machine Room
Left to right: D. Clark (standing), R. H.
Airey, Mrs M. Sisson,
Miss J. Mitchell, Miss A. P. Birkett, N. J.
Wileman,
Miss M. Johnstone, Miss J. M. Wilson, Miss A.
E. Dixon,
Miss L. A. Power
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Kendal Staff →
Back Row (left to right): Mr F. Smith (Pro
Manager), Mr J. S. Pearson (Accountant), Mr W. H. Mashiter (Arnside Sub),
Mr T. E. Wood (Milnthorpe Sub), Miss C. Parke,
Miss A. M. Lanyon,
Miss J. Hine, R. Thornton, K. A. Chapelhow
(Relief Staff), J. H. Thompson
Front Row: Mrs M. Stainton, Miss N. J.
Hewertson,
M. I, Colquhoun, D. V. Davies
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 We have so few big offices outside the industrial areas that
it is always pleasant to call at Kendal and find the business efficiency
and urgency of a large town Branch leavened by the cheerful, friendly air
of country banking at its best.
The Branch to-day has a predominantly young staff and it is to
the credit of Mr Clark and Mr Youdell
that it is a very happy office.
Many of the staff are the sons and daughters of farmers or have
close farming connections and it is hard to find anybody who is not
interested in something outside their banking lives—golf, singing, fell-walking, tennis, farming, rugby, local societies,
roses, cricket, youth clubs, music, football, church activities, motoring.
What of television
or the cinema? 'Well, sometimes, but there's plenty else to do', they say. They
do not go in for superlatives at Kendal and they don't expect others to do
so. They are a good lot.
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Kendal Staff →
On
left: Mr E. A, Youdell (Assistant Manager)
and
Mr C. Clark (Manager) with N. Chamley,
R.
F. Stoker, T. B. Whitehead,
Miss
J. M. Benson and Mrs J.Troughton
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← Kendal Staff
On right: Mr G. S. Simpson-Clark with (left to
right)
C.Law, Mrs M. M. Parkes, J. D. H. Beck,
Miss G. D. MacBryde,M. A. Watson,
P. F. Homer, Miss O. M. Iredell,
M. E. Bowman and A. G. Wilson
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He’s a gentleman, to the corps…
 Mr. R. G. Plint, Accountant
at Kendal Branch, was recently presented with a commemorative plaque bearing
the A.T.C. coat-of-arms from the officers, cadets and committee of the 1127
(Kendal) Squadron Air Training Corps, of which he has been commanding
officer, with the rank of Flight Lieutenant, for the past eight years. Mr.
Plint has now retired from his command.
Behind Mr. Plint is Mr. G. S. Simpson-Clark, also
of Kendal Branch, an instructor to the squadron, and on his left, Mr. J. W.
Bargh, Manager of Kendal Branch, who is Chairman of the Committee.
First Class Organisation…
“Things are obviously well organised at Kendal,
which is just as well
as the Branch is one of the largest
outside the major industrial areas!”
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1940 – reassuringly and
old-fashioned
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1963 – this is how the future
will look…
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Images ©
Martins Bank Archive Collections
Technical advances in British Banking mean that Kendal’s elegant
cheques from the 1940s have to be given a make-over for the computerisation
that the 1960s will bring. Still, at
least at Martins you’ll always be a name, not a number…
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Finest Bloom At Lakeland
Rose Show…
 A Norman Hartnell exhibited
at the Lakeland Rose Show in July by Alan Robinson (Kendal Branch) earned
the description ‘the finest bloom I have ever seen’ from one of the judges,
writing a week later in Garden
News. Twenty-one-year-old Mr
Robinson achieved outstanding success, winning the plaque for the best
rose bloom, the rose bowl for the best exhibit in the rose classes, and the
silver trophy for the best exhibit in ten specified classes.
His colleague at Kendal Branch and a
close neighbour, Alan Noble, won the class for the best single rose from
growers with less than 50 trees.
Both owe their enthusiasm for roses to another Martins man, Mr
Philip Horner, who retired from Kendal Branch a few years ago. Mr Horner
and Mr Robinson have been to the home of the Bank’s Chairman in order to
initiate Sir Cuthbert and Lady Clegg into the art of budding roses.
The rose experts: In his
garden Mr Alan Robinson (right) examines the blooms with, from the left,
Mr Philip Horner, Mr
Alan Noble and his father, Mr Jack Robinson.
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Photo:
© 1968 Westmorland Gazette displayed here as supplied to Martins Bank
Magazine
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