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When its doors
first are first opened on 18 October 1914, Birkenhead Claughton Village
Branch is one of the last offices of the Bank of Liverpool to be established
before the creation of the Bank of Liverpool and Martins.
Sadly, this
Branch does not survive quite long enough to be able to celebrate its one
hundredth birthday, as it is closed by Barclays on 26 July 2013. For our feature, we go back to October
1959, and the retirement of one of Martins Bank’s long serving Managers, Mr
Wall-Jones. He has actually worked at
Claughton Village twice, the second time as Manager of the Branch for around
twenty-one of his forty-three year career…
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In service: 18 October 1914 – 26 July 2013
Monochrome Branch
Images © Barclays Ref: 0030-0196
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  At
the end of October Mr. A. Wall Jones, Manager at Claughton Village since
1937, retired after 43 years' service. To mark the occasion a little ceremony
was held, during the course of which Mr. J. H. Pickering, Staff Manager, made
a presentation on behalf of the subscribers of a cheque which is to be used
for the purchase of rose trees for the garden of Mr. and Mrs. Wall Jones's
new home at Parkgate; the balance being used for the purchase of a fireside
chair. A bouquet was presented
to Mrs. Wall Jones by Miss E. J. Laughland, the junior girl at Claughton
Village. In the course of his remarks Mr.
Pickering recalled the active part which Mrs. Wall Jones had taken in the
early years of the Society of the Arts, immediately after the war, and to the
constant support they had both given to the social functions of the Bank and
expressed the hope that they would both enjoy many years of happiness in
their new home. After the speeches a tea party was held. Mr. Wall Jones entered the Bank in 1916 at Victoria
Street, and subsequently served at Claughton Village (twice), Mossley Hill,
Bootle, Water Street, Formby, on the Relief staff, Liverpool City Office and
Egremont. He was appointed Manager at Claughton Village in 1937.
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One for the album…
We are delighted to be able to show this photograph from around 1957,
which was kindly donated to Martins Bank Archive by Craig Turner. It features the Manager, Mr A Wall Jones
(Second from left) and Mr Turner’s Uncle, Mr John C Lewis (Right). Thanks to an email from Mary Hughes who
worked for Martins Bank, we are now able to identify the young lady in the
picture as Miss Val Foster. Mary
whose maiden surname was Reid, writes:
“Just
spent a happy hour trawling through the Martins Archive and noticed that you
have an unknown lady at Birkenhead Claughton Village Branch in 1957.
She was Miss Val Foster, later to become Mrs Val Brock and she is the
daughter of Arthur (known as Mac) Foster who was Manager at Wallasey
Egrement Branch. I was at Wallasey
Branch between 1961 and 1970 and was trained by Val. Gilly Walker was
my first Manager, Tony Clayton was my second Manager”…
This just leaves us with the man on the left of the photo, and if you
can help with this identificiation, or have any memories or images of
Claughton Village or indeed of any of Martins Bank’s 1000+ Branch
Buildings, please do get in touch with us at the usual address martinsbankarchive@btinternet.com
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Image
© Martins Bank Archive Collections - Craig Turner
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 Thanks to the foresight of Robert Montgomery, there exists a large
collection of photographs of British Bank Branches that have closed down in
recent years. Robert has kindly made available to us, those photographs
that represent former branches of Martins Bank. Here we see Claughton
Village Branch in August 2009, just under four years before its permanent
closure by Barclays…
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Image © Barclays Ref 0030-0196
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Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections – Robert
Montgomery
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It is also
really good to know, that even though 28 Upton Road has ceased to be a
bank, the memory of Martins will still be preserved within this beautiful
carving of Martins Bank’s Coat of Arms that sits atop the front door. This is one of several examples of the
Bank’s history being stamped onto the very buildings it once
occupied…
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Image © Barclays Ref 0030-0196
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Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections – Robert
Montgomery
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