Heart of England Building Society

Last updated

The Heart of England Building Society was a 1974 amalgamation of local building societies: the Warwick and Warwickshire; the Rugby; and the Walsall. Their only common feature was that they had remained very small for a century before beginning a limited expansion in the 1960s. However, the Heart of England grew to be the 25th largest society by 1993 when it was acquired by the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society.

Contents

History

Warwick

The Warwick and Warwickshire Benefit Building Society held its first meeting in November 1853 and its rules were approved in February 1854. The Recorder of Warwick was President and the Vice-presidents were the Mayor and the two town MPs. Subscription meetings were held fortnightly in the evening and the first mortgage was granted in the May; however, it was another year before the third mortgage was granted and that slow progress was an indicator of things to come. Financial problems also limited the Society’s progress. In 1875 the Society discovered that the Secretary had not paid over all the money he had received and payments to members were temporarily suspended. The failure of the Warwick’s bankers, Greenaway, Smith and Greenaway, in 1887 was a further blow. By the time of WWI assets were still under £100,000. [1]

The Society’s history admitted to an opposition to change after the War and when the Chairman resigned in 1930, after having been a director for 42 years, he was described as “a brake on the society”. No branches had been opened and the limited outreach of the Society was illustrated by the instructions to the new Secretary in 1920: to attend Subscription Meetings at Warwick, Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon each fortnight and Banbury and Kenilworth each fourth week. It was not until 1960 that the directors recommended opening three branches– Kenilworth, Stratford and Banbury. Banbury was opened in 1961and Stratford in 1962. This was as far as the Society got before its amalgamation with the Rugby Building Society in1966. [1]

Rugby

The early history of the Rugby Building Society was far removed from the Warwick, In1866 Dr Frederick Temple, headmaster of Rugby School and later Archbishop of Canterbury, chaired a public meeting to consider establishing a Freehold Land Society. It was duly formed as the Rugby Land Society but it was registered under the 1836 Building Society Act as the Rugby Benefit Building Society. For the next 60 years it acted as a land society buying and developing land in Rugby and selling it on as serviced plots to members. Land development as the primary function continued unchallenged until 1926 when the Society’s auditor pointed out that it was ultra vires to be buying and selling land. The Society had no option but to dispose of its land and all new business became that of a traditional building society; at that date, its assets were little more than £300,000. There was a limited attempt at geographic expansion. A branch was opened in Banbury in 1927 and then long gaps before branches at Lutterworth in 1945, Leamington in 1962 and Stratford-on-Avon in 1965. The addition of these branches helped to increase assets from under £2m at the end of WWII to £11m in 1967. However, in the last two years of its independent existence, the Society experienced financial irregularities in succession at Banbury, Stratford and Rugby involving police and prosecutions. It merged with the Warwick in 1967. [1]

Rugby and Warwick

The Rugby and Warwick Society started its merged life in 1967; in 1969 it decided to invest in branches in six nearby towns. In the event it succeeded in Kidderminster, 1971, Redditch 1972, and Birminghamin 1973. Its biggest move was the acquisition of the Oxford Provident Building Society in 1974. The Oxford was another Society with an unusual provenance. It had been formed in 1860 as the Oxford and Industrial Provident Land and Building Society and registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 1871. The Industrial Act severely limited the size of deposit that could be made and the Society remained small until it dissolved and re-registered in 1963 under the 1962 Building Societies Act. Its assets were a mere £337,000 on registration. These grew to over £2m by time of its acquisition by the Rugby and Warwick in March 1974. This took assets from £17m at the time of the Rugby and Warwick merge to £38m. Six months after the acquisition of the Oxford, the enlarged Rugby and Warwick merged with the Walsall Building Society. Although the engagements were transferred to the Walsall, the merger was one of equals with joint managing directors. [1]

Walsall

Walsall Mutual Benefit Society held its first meeting in 1863 but little is known of its early history other than it was very small and stayed that way for a century. Its assets were only £65,000 by the onset of WWI, and less than £500,000 by WWII. It was not until 1949 that the Society decided that it needed a full-time Secretary but under John Richardson the next 25 years saw substantial expansion, Assets rose from a little over £500,00 to £2,4m in 1959, at which point the Society decided to develop branches. It was almost ten years before the first branch opened (Brownhills in 1968) by which time assets were over £10m. Four more branches had been opened by 1974 when the Society merged with Rugby and Warwick. Its assets had doubled to £23m in that five-year period. [1]

Heart of England

The 1974 amalgamation of the Rugby and Warwick with the Walsall created a Society with assets of £66m and the concept of a merger of equals encouraged the creation of a new name – the Heart of England Building Society. On the merger, Rugby and Warwick brought in 12 branches and Walsall five, plus the two headquarters. Over the next five years a further eleven branches were opened, all in the midlands area. The Coalville Permanent Building Society, founded in 1912, was bought in 1978 followed by the South Birmingham Savings Society in 1981. That was the year when the Martin history finished, and the Society’s assets had increased to £149m. [1] There were two more local acquisitions in 1988, the Kidderminster Equitable and the Rowley Regis but otherwise growth was organic. [2]

In 1993 there was an abortive attempt to sell the Society to the recently formed Bank of Edinburgh. This was followed later that year by the Society’s absorption into the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society. By then, the Heart of England had become the 25th largest society with 230,000 savers and a billion pounds of assets. However, it was dwarfed by the Cheltenham which was sixteen times its size and with four times as many branches. [3]

Related Research Articles

Warwickshire County of England

Warwickshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon and Victorian novelist George Eliot,, at Nuneaton. Other significant towns include Rugby, Leamington Spa, Bedworth, Kenilworth and Atherstone. The county offers a mix of historic towns and large rural areas. It is a popular destination for international and domestic tourists to explore both medieval and more recent history.

Warwick District Non-metropolitan district in England

Warwick is a local government district of central Warwickshire in England. It borders the Borough of Rugby and Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire as well as the West Midlands County. The City of Coventry is to the north and northeast, the Stratford-on-Avon District to the southwest and south, the Borough of Rugby to the east, and the Borough of Solihull to the west and northwest.

The Abbey National Building Society was formed in 1944 by the merger of the Abbey Road and the National building societies.

Lloyds Bank British retail and commercial bank

Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four" clearing banks. Lloyds Bank is the largest retail bank in Britain, and has an extensive network of branches and ATMs in England and Wales and offers 24-hour telephone and online banking services. As of 2012 it had 16 million personal customers and small business accounts.

The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway (B&GR) was the first name of the railway linking the cities in its name and of the company which pioneered and developed it; the line opened in stages in 1840, using a terminus at Camp Hill in Birmingham. It linked with the Bristol and Gloucester Railway in Gloucester, but at first that company's line was broad gauge, and Gloucester was a point of the necessary but inconvenient transhipment of goods and passengers onto 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in gauge that became the national standard. Nearly all of the original main line remains active as a "trunk" route, also known as an arterial route or line.

Britannia Building Society

The Britannia Building Society was founded as the Leek & Moorlands Building Society in Leek in 1856. It expanded steadily as a regional society until the late 1950s when it began a major expansion drive, partly through branch openings but also some 55 acquisitions. The most substantial of these were the NALGO Building Society in 1960; the Westbourne Park in 1965 ; and the Eastern Counties Building Society in 1974. The Society’s name was changed to the Britannia Building Society the following year.

The Portman Building Society was a mutual building society in the United Kingdom, providing mortgages and savings accounts to consumers and offering loans to commercial enterprises. Its head office was in Bournemouth and its administration centre in Wolverhampton. Portman merged with the Nationwide Building Society in August 2007, at which time it was the third largest building society in the UK and the largest regional building society in the south of England, with 154 branches and assets exceeding £15 billion.

Stagecoach West

Stagecoach West is the trading name of Cheltenham & Gloucester Omnibus Company Limited, a bus operator providing services in Gloucestershire, Bristol, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, North Somerset and Herefordshire, in the West of England. The company is a subsidiary of Stagecoach Group.

Chelsea Building Society is a trading name of Yorkshire Building Society based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Chelsea merged with the Yorkshire in 2010, at which point Chelsea was the fourth largest building society in the United Kingdom, with assets in excess of £13 billion and 35 branches, mainly in the southern areas of England, particularly in London.

The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot Junction near Oxford to Worcester, Stourbridge, Dudley and Wolverhampton, as well as some branches.

The Principality Building Society is a building society based in Cardiff, Wales. With assets of £10bn it is the largest building society in Wales and the sixth largest in the United Kingdom. Principality Building Society is mutual, which means it is owned by its members rather than shareholders. It serves clients through the internet and telephone as well as at high street branches. It is a member of the Building Societies Association.

Stroud & Swindon Building Society was the 10th largest building society in the United Kingdom, with headquarters in Stroud, Gloucestershire and total assets of £2.7 billion as at 31 December 2009. It was a member of the Building Societies Association until its merger with the Coventry Building Society in 2010.

The City of Derry Building Society was a UK building society based in Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland known until 2001 as the Londonderry Provident Building Society. It was a member of the Building Societies Association.

Hinckley and Rugby Building Society

Hinckley & Rugby Building Society is a building society based in Hinckley, Leicestershire, UK. It dates from a merger in 1983, with origins claimed to date back to 1861.

Stagecoach in Warwickshire Bus operator

Stagecoach in Warwickshire is a bus operator in and around the county of Warwickshire. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach.

Bristol Omnibus Company Defunct public transportation company based in Bristol, UK (1887-1987)

The Bristol Omnibus Company was a dominant bus operator in Bristol, and was one of the oldest bus companies in the United Kingdom. It ran buses over a wide area of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and neighbouring counties.

The Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway (B&CDR) was a railway company through the Cotswolds in England that built a line between points near Banbury and Cheltenham. Its principal objective, as well as a general rural rail service, was the conveyance of iron ore from the East Midlands to South Wales.

Cheltenham & Gloucester plc (C&G) was a mortgage and savings provider in the United Kingdom, a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group. C&G specialises in mortgages and savings products. Previously, C&G was a building society, the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society. Its headquarters were in Barnwood, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England. C&G was closed to new mortgage and savings business on 9 September 2013.

The Ramsbury Building Society was formed in 1846 but remained a very local society until the 1950s. It began to expand through agencies, and then in the 1960s opened some twenty branches in Wiltshire and neighbouring areas. Mergers in the 1980s led to name changes, first to the West of England Building Society and then the Regency and West of England Building Society. The Society merged with the Portman Building Society in 1990.

The Temperance Building Society was formed in London in 1854 by non-conformists and abstainers. Using only agencies, it grew to be the largest building society in the early 1900s. However, a disinclination to adopt more modern practices led to a relative decline in the inter-war period. A revival began in 1942 when a new general manager was appointed, and a national branch network was established within a couple of years. By the time of the Temperance’s official history in 1954, the Society was once again in the top ten. In 1974 the Temperance merged with the Bedfordshire Building Society to form the Gateway Building Society, breaking the long-standing association with the temperance movement. The Gateway in turn merged with the Woolwich Equitable in1988 to form the Woolwich Building Society.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 P W Martin, History of Heart of England Building Society, 1981, Warwick,
  2. ↑ "Mergers and name changes" (PDF). Building Societies Association. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  3. ↑ "C&G to merge with Heart of England" . The Independent. October 23, 2011. Archived from the original on 2022-05-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.