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Prenton Branch is opened by the Bank of Liverpool and
Martins in 1909, adding to what will become a portfolio of TWELVE Martins Bank Branches in the Birkenhead area, and many more throughout
the Wirral Peninsula.
By 1969 in addition to Prenton, there will be or have been Branches at Borough
Road, Charing
Cross, Dacre Hill,
Claughton Village, Hamilton Square, Higher Tranmere, Lower
Bebington, Park, Rock Ferry, Upton and Woodside Lairage. So, wherever a 1960s customer finds
themselves in Birkenhead, they will really have NO
excuse for banking elsewhere!
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In Service:
1909 until 7 April 2000
Monochrome Branch Images © Barclays Ref 0030-0195
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This image of the almost childlike Mr J Corner (who
does, we admit, remind us a little of Jimmy Clitheroe) is taken in
1948, three years after  he
joins the bank. He works hard
throughout the 1950s for various Head Office Departments including Staff
Department, is appointed Clerk in Charge at Neston in the early
sixties, and in 1965 takes over the
Managership of
Prenton Branch right up to the merger with Barclays in
1969. He is still recognisable from his maturer years image in
our Staff Gallery below! Meanwhile
Basil Thorington, Prenton’s Manager between
1961 and 1965 (see STAFF GALLERY below)
goes South and East to Manage Norwich London Street. Whilst there he will oversee the building
and handing over to Barclays of Martins Bank’s last Branch new Branch to be
opened in the name of Martins at EATON which opens in May 1969.
Messenger gone bad…
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Honesty and
trustworthiness are the two pre-requisites of anyone who is going to be
working for a bank. Sadly, most
banks down the years have encountered staff who are not quite as honest or
trustworthy as expected. One such
case happens in June 1929, when a young man employed as a messenger at
Birkenhead’s Prenton Branch, concocts a clever plan to steal a very large
amount of money from the Bank. £1,150 in 1929 was worth around £95,000 in
2024. Hugh Barry (aged 19), and his brother
Geoffrey (17) come up with a daring plot, which at first glance seems to go
according to plan. Thankfully, it all
falls quickly apart, and the two boys are remanded in custody awaiting
trial for theft, as this extract from the Leicester Evening Mail of 7 June
1929 explains…
Text © Reach PLC and Find my Past
created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.
Text reproduced with kind permission
of The British Newspaper Archive
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By 2011,
this once beautiful bank branch had been transformed almost out of
recognition, as we can see in the contemporary photograph taken by Robert
Montgomery.
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Image © Martins Bank
Archive Collections – E Basil Thorington
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Image © Martins Bank
Archive Collections – Robert Montgomery
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