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					It’s 1960, and our South Western District Office is the newest of our network of local head office buildings. At long last there is a much more local control over our branches in the West and South West of England, and the South of Wales. Growth in the work of this new office is exponential – so much so, that larger premises are soon required. So in Spring 1968, our South West District Office which since 1960 has been sited within our Bristol City Office building at No 47 corn Street, moves over the road to No 48. The workload has grown because Martins is still growing its branch network in the area. The majority of new state of the art branches opened in the 1960s are to be found within the boundaries of South Western District. These include the opening of new offices and the redevelopment of older ones in Bristol. Our presence in Newport, Monmouthshire increases from one to three branches. A second branch opens in Cheltenham, the original Cheltenham branch is bulldozed and rebuilt, and our Gloucester Branch is also given new premises suited to modern banking. A number of new sub branches are also opened in prime shopping areas of many towns and cities in the South West.
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from our spring issue 1963 following a visit to Bristol in snow and ice: “The old saying 'nothing succeeds like success', is shown in the atmosphere of liveliness and vigour at Corn Street, which starts at the very top . . . As we write we keep wondering how long the snow sticks on the roof. . . Not long, we think, with all that energy below - unless the insulation is very good: in which case nobody will be fooled except our competitors”.
The Main Office at SWDO				Well, there you are! We saw this coming five years ago— not just the need for more elbow room but all the indications that our South Western District would continue to flourish. Everything written about it in these pages during the past five years has confirmed this, and now District Office has had to find a new home, leaving No. 47 to provide more breathing space for the expanding Bristol City Office and the Trustee and Tax departments.
No. 48 stands next to the Corn Exchange just across the street on a narrow site of great depth, outwardly a beautiful Georgian structure but inwardly . . . just a minute now! New premises should, ideally, be big enough to allow for expansion ten or even twenty years ahead: in design and architecture the same intelligent guesswork is required. One can estimate growth with reasonable accuracy 'other things being equal', and the new office has been taken and planned accordingly.				Combined Board Room and General Manager’s Room
Assistant District Manager’s Room				But how can one plan or even guess in matters of design where tastes, fashions and personal preferences can change almost as quickly as a government's policies ? We are almost prepared to lay a prudent 6 to 4 that in ten years' time most of No. 48 will be in fashion and of those parts that are not people will be saying 'What a pity we don't see that sort of thing in today's buildings'. Being narrow-waisted, the building presented a problem at the start and so from the entrance one must go right, left or upwards.
On the right are the glass-enclosed rooms of the Superintendent and the Inspectors with loads of space for a waiting room, the 'desk men' and the typists. To the left of the entrance lie Reception, Interview, Staff, Visiting Inspectors and Premises, all these rooms and the connecting passage at the back being carpeted in a highly original blue-green hog's hair on blubber which, with occasional dampening, retains its spring indefinitely. The lift and the staircase wrapped round it take one to the District General Management suite on the first floor, Mr Clarkson's room being combined ingeniously with the Board Room.				The Dining Room
There have been suggestions that this room may be too sombre even in daylight, yet most of the 150 guests at the reception on the evening of January 23 persisted in crowding in and staying there despite the seemingly limitless space elsewhere. To the observer that might be puzzling, but there are more things in design and architecture than are dreamed of in the minds of mere businessmen and one of these things is that one should not be consciously aware of one's surroundings. Perhaps John Crowther, the Truro architect, was secretly delighted to see this proved so convincingly. In contrast there is the lightness and warmth of the almost Western Desert tone of Mr Milburn's room across the building—a room which at first surprised one but quickly attracted much favourable comment. On the second floor, to the front of the building, is the management dining room with an attractive ante-room lit from what we fondly, if irreverently, term 'tiddler cans'. The dining room, panelled in the knotted pine of No. 47, is a delight and Mrs Bryant's culinary kingdom which adjoins it is a model of efficient modernity. At the back of the building, still on the second floor, is an unoccupied room of the same dimensions as Mr Milburn’s beneath it. Since nobody named Parkinson has commanded the District his Law will not affect that vacant space. So far as is known there is no Clarkson’s Law but we suggest that it might well be ‘Time, money and staff put to the best use bring their own reward’, simply because that is the unwritten law by which the Board, the management and the staff have brought this District to its present eminence.
Mr G E McWatters Chairman of the Board 1960	Viscount Cilcennin Director 1960				Colonel G C Trehearne TD LL Director 1961	Colonel W Q Roberts CBE DSO MVO TD ADC DL Director 1961
The Hon. M J Lambert Director 1966	Admiral Sir Deric Holland-Martin Director 1966
DISTRICT OFFICE – GENERAL STAFF
Miss J Hetherington SWDO Staff 1967	Mr D Parker SWDO Staff 1968				Mr T E Bond SWDO Staff 1968
DISTRICT GENERAL MANAGER’S DEPARTMENT
Mr G E Clarkson South Western District General Manager 1960 onwards	Mr D E Brewis Assistant District Manager 1965				Mr A E Milburn Assistant District Manager 1967
INSPECTORS
Mr C A Brockbank Inspector 1960	Mr E Russell Inspector 1964				Mr F Pickup Inspector 1964	Mr F J Lyons Inspector 1965
Mr J P Smith Inspector 1967	Mr J W Burnside Inspector 1968
SUPERINTENDENT OF BRANCHES
Mr D E Brewis South Western District Superintendent of Branches 1960	Mr J K Cornall South Western District Superintendent of Branches 1967
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Title:		Martins Bank Limited South Western District Office
Address:		PO Box 6 47 Corn Street Bristol 1
Telephone:		Bristol 294781/8
District General Manager:		Mr G E Clarkson
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© gut informiert! 2007 to date

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