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Sowerby Bridge is
one of the many branches that comes to Martins Bank upon the amalgamation of
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank and the Bank of Liverpool and Martins in
1928.
Principally a
collection of Northern banks that has grown by amalgamation and takeover,
Martins Bank’s spread across the North of England occasionally throws up an
anomaly or two.
The most confusing
of these being – which branches in Yorkshire belong to Manchester district,
and vice versa? |
In Service: 1910 to 14 October 2005
Image © Barclays Ref
0030-2749
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Thankfully,
Martins keeps an index number (see branch information section below) for each
of its branches, that enables each one to be traced to its own district, and
Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire, finds itself in MANCHESTER district.
An entire group of branches located in the Calder Valley,
and situated within the boundaries of Yorkshire also find themselves
administered from Manchester. On a trip through the area in 1966, Martins
Bank Magazine pays the branch a visit, and tries hard to paint a positive
picture of what seems to be
a forgotten part of England…
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A
local civic dignitary once dubbed it ‘The Venice of the North’. Our branch must be the most attractive
feature in a thoroughly depressing area: completely modernised two years ago,
it has a tonic effect on those who work there and on the visitor. Just as the
Leeds district gave Mytholmroyd a facelift, so the Manchester District have
revitalised Sowerby bridge and, of course, like every branch in this
strangely ‘lost’ valley it makes a good profit under the astute handling of
Mr C B Bedford who can spot the flaws in most things – even Wakefield Road.
Sowerby Bridge Stationery… This example of personalised stationery for a customer,
will have been in use in the 1940s and 50s. It bears a National Number rather
than a Sorting Code Number. |
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Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections |
The Sorting Code starts to appear from around 1960 onwards. This is an INTEREST WARRANT, a particular type of
cheque that would be issued by the Sowerby Bridge Urban District Council to
those in receipt of interest from specific forms of investment in the
Council. Such investments would raise
funds for major schemes of work in the local area. Unusually the warrant does
not bear the Coat Of Arms of Martins Bank.
Instead, the ornate decoration on the left hand side is the Coat Of
Arms of Calderdale, in which Sowerby Bridge is situated, and bears the motto
“Arte et Industria”. Two more
traditional cheques are shown below, the salmon pink one being a popular
wartime design for cheques issued in the Manchester District of the Bank: |
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Image © 2019 and 2021 Martins Bank Archive Collections – Dave Baldwin |
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x
*our thanks to Ben Brundell whose
keen eye spotted the closure date on the
web site of the Halifax Courier. This neatly fills in a hole both
in the records of Barclays and
ourselves!
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One
approaches Sowerby Bridge down Tuel Lane which is something like 1 in 2 in
places, very long, and known in banking circles as ‘Harry Benny’s Hill’
because he once had to walk up it!.
