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	A –Z of Branches Browse a list of more than 850 of our branches for which there are individual pages on this site. This list will continue to grow until all of nearly 900 branches - past and present - are featured!
	A career with BIG OPPORTUNITIES! Our 1965 recruitment campaign leaflet is bursting with facts and figures about a career at Martins. If you are an “industrious young man” or an “intelligent young lady”, your future is bright with us!
	Advertising An in-depth feature which looks at Martins Bank’s advertising in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, with special focus on a lost TV advert, is advertising necessary, and some of Martins’ most iconic adverts.
	An Account at Martins Bank – Part One It is 1959 – time to take stock, navel gaze, and let people know what our bank is all about. By today’s standards this record of how Martins sees itself is quaint, but shows just far and quickly it has progressed…
	An Account at Martins Bank – Part Two Unearthed at last, this is the first outing on the internet for Martins’ 18 page leaflet designed to make YOU want to open a bank account. Fascinating, and definitely of its time!
	Animals and Children Not every little girl gets to work with an elephant and camel, and here we meet Caroline who did just that for our 1966 advertising campaign, giving us two unforgettable images in the process…
	Annual Report and Accounts The Bank, and its subsidiary companies including Lewis’s Bank enjoy a really good year, and publish a fine set of results for 1959. If you want to see how it all adds up, take a look!
	Barclays’ Report to the Monopolies Commission What’s this? A proposed merger between Barclays Lloyds and Martins? Why that would create a “Superbank” – here Barclays explains the savings behind this idea that was, thankfully, rejected...
	Beginning of the End The “merger” is upon us, and at 750 locations around England and Wales, signs go up reminding customers of the changes. Refered to as “the END of the BEGINNING”, some see it the other way…
	Big Business at Martins Bank We look at three of the Bank’s biggest customers, and they don’t come much bigger than an ocean cruise company, an airline, and the empire that runs the football pools…
	Branches by District Martins works on a regional basis, with a system of districts most of which have their own local head offices. Here you can read a little about each district, and visit branches that belong to each of them.
	Cheque Automation Martins’ Organisation Research and Development arm went to extremes to bring cheque automation to the UK. Here we look at the very early days of that familiar line of numbers at the bottom of a cheque…
	Cheque Guarantee Card What did we do in the days before plastic cards? We used cardboard ones, of course! Martins has reciprocal arrangements with twelve other banks, to make your cheque book even more portable…
	Coat of Arms Where did that grasshopper come from? What is that strange bird holding in its beak? What have these creatures to do with a bank? These and more questions will be answered!
	Computer – Friend or Foe? Staff concerns are tackled head on in this article from 1968, as the bank tries to show there is nothing to fear from the advance of a new technology that helps remove boring and repetitive work practices…
	Convenient Banking Everything you need to enhance your banking experience – cash machines, cheque guarantee, mobile banking, student banking, money for travel, drive-in branches – it’s all here at Martins!
	Credit Transfers Something as simple as a slip of paper that enables money to flow freely between all banks and branches is finally invented in 1962, and the eleven clearing banks are very proud of their new baby…
	Customer Stationery These are the days when you pay tax to write a cheque or make a payment by standing order. A bewildering array of forms is needed to produce entries to and from your bank account.
	Decimalisation Martins did not survive the 60s, yet our Bank played a key role in Britain’s changeover to decimal currency. To find out how, and to meet the man responsible, visit our decimalisation feature.
	Designing Martins Bank By the mid 1960s new branches were being opened all over England and Wales – many lavishly designed and excuted. Sadly many of the artworks and fittings are now missing..
	District Offices Many of our District Offices were once the Head offices of banks that merged with Martins. Here you can visit each one and meet some of the staff that oil the machinery of local banking in the 1960s.
	Drive-In Banking An amazing first for Martins, as for the first time the busy motorists of Leicester can make use of a drive-in branch to do their banking. The initiative is even visited by the Minister for Transport.
	Feminine Fayre In a somewhat belated attempt to recognise its female readership, Martins Bank Magazine offers a quarterly feature for women highlighting key concerns of the day – cooking, fashion, home design and so on…
	Final Countdown 15 December 1969 is the date laid down by law for the “merger” between Martins and Barclays to take place. 1969 is a busy year for the staff of Martins, as can be seen in this month by month countdown…
	Four Centuries of Banking From our Bank’s humble origins in the City of London in 1563 to today’s empire based in Liverpool, our history is VERY long and distinguished – so much so that it will probably be impossible to cover it all.
	Gentlemen: - The Ladies! Who’s minding the shop? In fact, who’s also coping with war work, family and home responsibilities? Why, it’s the “secret army” of ladies who keep our branch network running in World War II
	Giveaways! Out go the stuffy and staid advertising policies of the 1930s and 40s, and in come a number of magical enticements to young an old to open an account at Martins Bank. Once given away, now found on eBay.
	Going Away “How Martins Bank can help you when travelling either at home or abroad, is described briefly in our leaflet “Money for Travel”. Any branch will gladly give you a copy, whether you are a customer of Martins Bank or not”.
	Grasshopper Pensioners’ Club We are delighted to welcome club members to this site. You can read the latest newsletter, and earlier editions will gradually be archived.
	IBM Reader/Sorter Winched four floors up into our 68 Lombard Street Office, the mighty IBM Reader/Sorter begins the job of cheque automation by reading the magnetic data on 950 cheques per minute.
	Information Department A new head Office Department is charged wit the responsibility of helping staff and customers with all manner of information from home and abroad. A wealth of useful information flows outwards…
	In the Limelight Children’s favourites, zoo animals, the neighbourhood cat, famous stars and royalty all have one thing in common – they like to visit Martins Bank, and you can meet some of them here!
	Isle of Man It’s abroad, but it’s not far away, and we have our own network of branches on the Isle of Man. Until 1961 we enjoyed the priviledge of issuing our own £1 notes here, too!
	Kendal – a history lesson… Wakefield Crewdson - The Kendal Bank, has a long and proud history. Some of our staff are lucky enough to meet one of the direct descendants of the Wakefield family…
	Lewis’s Bank The department store bank for everyone – “shop and save” was never this innovative! With children’s counters and long hours, Lewis’s also gives Martins a foothold in Scotland for the first (and only) time.
	Lewis’s Bank – The Last Supper… June 1967, and our friends and colleagues at Lewis’s Bank prepare to say goodbye in style at this, their last annual dinner under the management of Martins Bank.
	Liver Birds “The Little Book of Liver Birds” by David Cottrell is right up our street (that’ll be Water Street of course) and David treats us to some magnificent images of the Liver Bird as she is seen at Head Office
	Liverpool Computer Centre To be the first bank to successfully handle its current account business on computer, you need to start somewhere. That somewhere is Martins’ Liverpool Computer Centre, vision of the late Ron Hindle.
	London Computer Centre One of Martins’ biggest investments comes in the form of the London Computer Centre at Wallbrook EC4. State of the art equipment, brand new building, the future has arrived!
	Lost in Translation? A “boys own “ story of a man whose experience of life and world affairs is hard to match. Who else but a member of our staff numbered the Prime Minister and half the cabinet as friends?
	Martins at War The devastation of the blitz took its toll on some of our branches. One of our finest, in Liverpool was completely demolished, leaving only the roof of the vault visible in the rubble.
	Martins Auto Cashier It was a race that we only just lost – by five months – to bring you the world’s first cash dispenser. Still, what we did manage was the first Cash Dispenser in the North of England. Not bad.
	Martins Bank Branches in Sussex When a former Martins Branch closes in Brighton in 1984, Mr A F Hill is keen to preserve the memory of Martins’ involvement in the county of Sussex…
	Martins’ Firsts Being first to do something is not always an advantage, but on the whole Martins’ Firsts are quite special, and illustrate that by being first with so many innovations, the bank is going to extremes to be helpful.
	Martins Income Tax Departments Our income tax departments aim to take the sting out of your tax bill, and for a reasonable fee, we can take care of your tax affairs. Under 1960s taxation, this is a truly useful service…
	Martins’ Sporting Life Bank staff really value their leisure time, and when ours are not singing and dancing or taking part in amateur productions, they are out there on the sports field winning trophies, and acclaim…
	Martins Trustee Department At your service as executor and trustee, Martins Bank has a network of Turstee and Income Tax offices across Britain, the Channel islands and the Isle of Man.
	Martins Unicorn The jewel in our crown is the acquisition of Unicorn Trust, whose products first as Martins Unicorn, later Barclays Unicorn will be a roaring success almost until the next millennium!
	Magnetic Ink Character Recognition That little row of futuristic looking numbers has been printed along the bottom of our cheques for the last 50 years. Here we look at what those numbers and symbols mean to cheque reading equipment.
	Midland District Office Machine School Delays in computerising our branch network mean that we have to produce statements on manual machines right up to the merger. Our girls are sent to district machine schools to learn how to do it..
	Mobile Branches 1948, and our mobile branch fleet takes to the roads, beginning a twenty year success story that boosts our profile at events and shows throughout the land.
	Money in Britain Our Economic Information Department excels itself once more with this tour de force from January 1968 – a handy leaflet designed for those who would like to start a business in Britain…
	Most Wanted There are many Martins souvenirs that have either yet to be found, or have simply vanished from the face of the earth. We need your help to find some items that will help us continue to tell the story of our Bank.
	New Technology Martins made huge advances in researching and using the kind of technology that banks would need to see them into a new century. We look in depth at this pioneering work.
	“Nicest People” The nicest people work at Martins Bank, but what are the terms and conditions of employment? How do the careers of men and women compare? What kind of training is there?
	Numbers Numbers Numbers It all began with National Numbers, a way of distinguishing between bank branches, and ended with customers being known by an account number – but what do all those numbers actually mean?
	One day in the sixties It’s world cup year 1966, and the world is still in black and white. We look at a typical night’s TV and wonder how we ever managed when there were only three channels…
	One Bank – Many Faces A light-hearted “A to Z” of our “specialist” branches – a hospital, a school, universities, cattle markets, RAF stations, an abattoir, a gas works, a chemical plant, a paper mill…
	Overseas Branches Our UK based overseas branches and our Paris Office help us to provide the best foreign banking services – from travellers’ cheques to opening a bank account abroad…
	Pegasus II A giant room full of equipment enables Martins to process the day to day activities of 30,000 current accounts. British firm Feranti works closely with us to write the necessary software.
	Shotguns Whiskey and Silly Old Bats… We lift the lid on the varied career of one of Martins’ more well-travelled staff in a journey that takes him all the way from West Kirby, via Nigeria to sunny Colchester!
	Song and Dance Martins staff are so keen to sing, act and dance, that between them they support FIVE major regional amateur operatic and dramatic societies. Come with us for a fabulous night out…
	Staff Catering Going to Extremes to be Helpful is hungry work, and our network of staff restaurants keeps the workforce happy and fed. Fish on Fridays, and a collosal shopping list make for a busy life in Staff Catering.
	Staff Training – The New Look In 1960, the idea that training should consist of chinese whispers is brushed aside with the establishment of training centres and schools in towns and cities all over the country.
	Stationery Department Much of the Bank’s stationery requirement is met by our state of the art Stationery Department at Birkenhead. Internal vouchers and specialist forms are produced to order.
	Student Banking From the days when students were paid to go to university, we look at how Martins went after the student and youth banking market. There is money to be made, if you have the right advertising!
	The Man behind the Camera From striking images of new and refurbished branches, to shots of our staff at work rest and play, this man has produced them all from his vantage point behind the camera…
	The Rebuilding of 68 Lombard Street In 1930 our Principal London Office at 68 Lombard Street was crowded and becoming ufit for purpose. It was pulled down and rebuilt to cope with the complexities of twentieth-century banking.
	Tools of the Trade What are the weapons in the cashier’s armoury? How do they know what to do? What helps them count money? How do you know when they are ready to serve you? Tools of the Trade lifts the lid…
	Top Secret Just where did we hide Britain’s gold reserves when France fell to Hitler? How did the banks keep the wartime cheque clearing running smoothly? And what is Martins doing in a large house in Wimbledon?
	Trade Stands Along with Mobile Branches, trade stands are a vital part of promoting the Bank’s image. We have some wonderful colour images from a wealth of events in the 1950s and 60s.
	T W W Studio Visit A party of staff from south Western District Office and Bristol Trustee and Investment Department are invited to look behind the scenes at the studios of Television Wales and West.
	What might have been? What if the “merger” with Barclays hadn’t taken place? What products and services would Martins be offering today? We scratch our heads and use our imagination a little.
	Wish you were (still) here… Don’t miss our gallery of “postcards” that tell the story of key years in the history of our much loved bank. See in pictures some of the milestones reached and what we achieved.
	You can open a banking account… …with only a few pounds. Martins pushes hard to attract the credit balances that will help pay for the expansion of the bank in the south, and this guide to banking for beginners is a little gem!
THE MARTINS BANK ARCHIVE PROJECT HAS NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER WITH BARCLAYS PLC, BUT WE ARE GRATEFUL FOR THE CONTINUED AND GENEROUS GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT OF BARCLAYS GROUP ARCHIVE © gut informiert! 2007 to date