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 It is not every day that you get the chance to meet
someone with a direct connection to the past.
On a cold winter’s night early in 1967, Kendal Staff are given a
lesson in the history of their Branch, the former Kendal Bank - whose name
remains carved into the front of the building to this day. Their guide is one
of the direct descendents of the Wakefield Family, Mrs M A Gordon. In the late eighteenth and the nineteenth
centuries, Messrs Wakefield Crewdson – The Kendal Bank, was a major force in
local finance, with branches across the South of the Lake District and North
Lancashire. The visit to Mrs Gordon’s
house, is described in the following article from ‘Northern District News’ in
the Spring 1967 edition of Martins Bank Magazine…
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WHY NOT ALSO VISIT
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  On a
dark, chilly evening early in the New Year many of the Kendal staff, some accompanied
by their wives and husbands, were royally entertained at Lane Head,
Helsington by Mrs M. A. Gordon, a direct descendant of the Wakefields who
inaugurated banking business in Kendal in days gone by. The visit to Lane Head became a journey into the distant
past for many of our newest recruits as well as their older colleagues, for
Lane Head is a veritable treasure chest and Mrs Gordon was a most faithful
and able narrator of the history of the Wakefield family and their banking
beginnings. She very kindly produced a self-drawn family tree showing her
direct descent from Roger Wakefield who married Hannah Preston in 1665, and
proudly displayed what is, perhaps, her most treasured possession—a silver tankard of ample proportions which
belonged to the same Hannah Preston. The Prestons were indigenous
here, the Wakefields being the ‘off-comers’, and after Roger’s marriage his
holdings with those of his wife formed some ten miles within a ring fence: on
the security of this property the original banking business was founded.
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son, Roger, began lending money against mortgages from his home, Challon
Hall, and later from the house in Strickland-gate still standing opposite the
County Hall. Thus banking started, to be continued as the years went on from
a block of three rooms, one above the other, set aside in the Stricklandgate
house. We were told of a time of
depression following the Battle of Waterloo when a run on the bank was feared
and John, son of Roger, foreseeing an insufficiency of funds to pay out his
customers, hastily sent messengers by stage coach to Lancaster to obtain more
money while he successfully employed delaying tactics by well heating the
gold available. It proved so hot to
handle that valuable time was wasted counting it, thus allowing the
messengers time to complete their journey and save the day.
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The Kendal Bank in the care of Martins Bank Limited, 1967
Image © Barclays Ref 0030-1458
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John Wakefield the first married a Margaret Hodgson who brought banking
connections to add to their wealth, which was fully utilised in the banking
business and not left idle to pass down from father to son. We were told of
the bank lending money on the security of a woollen mill in a time of
depression when many in the town were workless. Margaret Hodgson had the
brilliant idea of employing the local people on the then silent spinning
wheels, thus serving the three-fold purpose of providing work for idle hands,
paying off the bank and putting the borrower back on his feet. Could 1967’s
bankers do better? Among Mrs Gordon’s treasures was a silhouette of Jacob
Wakefield, a son of John the first, and Mrs Gordon recalled his coachman,
Dobson, who as an old man of 92 when she herself was but five years old told
her of a sedan chair used for his master’s transportation within his
recollection.
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 We were also shown a glass case containing
old guinea notes, probably issued on the security of Wakefield land, bearing
the symbols of sheaves of corn, sickle, etc. and showing our affinity to the
land from whence cometh our daily bread. A Day Book
begun in January 1792 and still in excellent condition shows entries of £5. 5s. a fortnight to E. W. Wakefield. Mrs
Gordon’s great grandfather.
The banking business passed from Mrs Gordon’s great, great
grandfather. John Wakefield, to his son Edward William. succeeded by his son
William of Birklands and then by his son Captain E. W. Wake-field, who became
Mrs Gordon’s father and carried on the business jointly with Frank Crewdson
after amalgamation with the Crewdson banking business. She related somewhat
regretfully that they sold out to the Bank of Liverpool ‘there being no male descent to take the reins’.
Had things been different we might indeed have been directly
indebted to Mrs Gordon for our annual rises, and her male counterpart might
similarly have been seated with the general management. Mrs Gordon’s memory bridged the gap between past and
present and her hospitality extended to chocolates and cigarettes followed by
a feast of proportions suited to a past day and age, but giving obvious
pleasure to the modern generation. A more
cordial welcome could not have been extended and we hope she enjoyed our
invasion even half as much as we appreciated her kindness, for we have a
great regard for this charming lady whose active mind and keen eye would do
credit to many half her age.
 M
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