London Savings Bank

Last updated

The London Savings Bank was a product of a 1916 merger between the London Provident Institution (1816), the Bloomsbury Savings Bank (1817) and the Lambeth Savings Bank (1818). In 1942 the Finsbury and City of London Savings Bank amalgamated with the London Savings Bank. In 1971, the London Savings Bank became part of the London and South Eastern TSB, which in turn became part of TSB South East.

Contents

History

The three constituents of the 1916 merger started their life a century previous, and but a few years after the opening of the first commercial savings bank at Ruthwell. The London Provident and the Bloomsbury were both formed as provident societies following the Bath model used by the neighbouring St Martin’s Place Savings Bank. [1] Lambeth, formed in 1818, was constituted as a savings bank following the 1817 Savings Act.

Three constituent banks

London Provincial Bank

The London Provincial Bank, originally known as the London Provident Institution, was opened in July 1816 with. Sir Thomas Baring as President. The Bank was often referred to as the Bishopsgate Bank, as it was based at Bishopsgate Churchyard until 1832. It then moved to Blomfield Street where it stayed until 1899; its final home until the merger was Middlesex Street, Stepney. The Bank may also have been known as the Moorfields Bank. In 1856, Horne quoted the Bishopsgate Bank as the fourth largest savings bank in Britain, albeit overshadowed by the nearby St Martin’s Place. [1]

Bloomsbury Savings Bank

The Bloomsbury Provident Bank, later the Bloomsbury Savings Bank, opened in Southampton Row in February 1817, with the Duke of Bedford as President. In 1856 it was the seventh largest savings bank in the country. Bloomsbury was one of the banks active in promoting the formation of a national association in 1887 and was one of 14 savings banks, and the only London representative, on the Council of Management; the Bank also provided the honorary treasurer. [1]

Lambeth Trustee Savings Bank

The Lambeth Bank had more humble origins than its future partners. Under the chairmanship of the local Rector, a meeting decided to open a committee room in the parish school for two hours twice a week. Directors were to attend to receive money. The parish school master was appointed Secretary, but the increase in deposits made it necessary in 1827 to appoint an accountant. The Bank had to move twice due to railway extensions. In 1849 it moved to Hercules Road where it remained until 1903, when the Bank bought freehold of premises in Kennington Road. [2]

London Savings Bank

Post World War I, a policy of amalgamation was encouraged by the Trustee Savings Bank Association. The London Savings Bank had already acquired the Brighton Savings Bank in 1917 but the latter seceded in 1920. However, the Southampton and the Guildford Savings Banks joined the London Savings Bank in 1919. Gradually, the London TSB extended west to Newbury, south west to Southampton and south east to Rochester. The mergers continued into WWII with the addition in 1941 of the Luton and District Trustee Savings Bank. By then, only two London savings banks remained and in 1942 the London Savings Bank merged with the Finsbury and City of London Savings Bank under the title of London Trustee Savings Bank. [3]

The Finsbury Savings Bank, as it then was, opened in August 1816 in St. John's Square, Clerkenwell Green, Islington. It began in only a small room in a house where “a few people gathered together to form a savings bank for small tradesmen, labourers and servants.” Despite its reputation as a small establishment for poor people, Finsbury had some well-known customers, including Charles Dickens. In 1841, Finsbury moved impressive new premises in Sekforde Street [4] Like the London Bank, in the early twentieth century the Finsbury spread out from London, reaching Bedford, High Wycombe and Gravesend. [3]

The two banks were similar in size. The 1935 Trustee Savings Year Book gave London as number 16 by size with 31,000 active accounts, 13 branches and £4.2 million funds. The Finsbury and City of London Savings Bank was number 21 by size with 20,000 active accounts. 8 branches and £3.0 million funds. [5] At the time of the merger, funds were given as £20 million and in 1944 the enlarged bank ranked number 8 in the country, well behind northern and Scottish savings banks. [1]

In 1951, a new head office was opened for the enlarged Bank in Cannon Street. In 1971, the London Savings Bank merged with the South Eastern Trustees Savings Bank, to form the London and South Eastern Savings Bank. The new bank had 123 offices and funds exceeding £250 million. Following the Trustee Savings Bank Act of 1975 which encouraged further consolidation, the London and South Eastern Savings Bank became part of the TSB of South East. [3]

Related Research Articles

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

The Philadelphia Savings Fund Society (PSFS), originally called the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society, was a savings bank headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. PSFS was founded in December 1816, the first savings bank to organize and do business in the United States. The bank would develop as one of the largest savings banks in the United States and became a Philadelphia institution. Generations of Philadelphians first opened accounts as children and became lifelong depositors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yorkshire Bank</span>

Yorkshire Bank is a trading name used by Clydesdale Bank plc for its retail banking operations in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lloyds Bank</span> 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trustee Savings Bank</span> British financial institution

The Trustee Savings Bank (TSB) was a British financial institution. Trustee savings banks originated to accept savings deposits from those with moderate means. Their shares were not traded on the stock market but, unlike mutually held building societies, depositors had no voting rights; nor did they have the power to direct the financial and managerial goals of the organisation. Directors were appointed as trustees on a voluntary basis. The first trustee savings bank was established by Rev. Henry Duncan of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire for his poorest parishioners in 1810, with its sole purpose being to serve the local people in the community. Between 1970 and 1985, the various trustee savings banks in the United Kingdom were amalgamated into a single institution named TSB Group plc, which was floated on the London Stock Exchange. In 1995, the TSB merged with Lloyds Bank to form Lloyds TSB, at that point the largest bank in the UK by market share and the second-largest by market capitalisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Permanent TSB</span> Irish banking group

Permanent TSB Group Holdings plc, formerly Irish Life and Permanent plc is a provider of personal financial services in Ireland. Irish Life Assurance plc and the Irish Permanent Building Society merged to form the Irish Life and Permanent Group in 1999 and the merged entity acquired the Trustee Savings Bank in 2001. The group has no connection to the UK's TSB Bank.

TSB Bank Ltd trading as TSB, is a New Zealand bank with headquarters in New Plymouth. It has 25 branches across the country but is heavily focused on the Taranaki region where 12 of its branches are located. As of June 2022, it was the seventh largest bank in New Zealand, with a market share in terms of assets of 1.4%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cranley Gardens railway station</span> Former railway station in London

Cranley Gardens railway station was a station in the Muswell Hill area of north London. It was located between Highgate and Muswell Hill stations, at the junction of Muswell Hill Road and Cranley Gardens. Nothing remains of the station today and its site is now occupied by housing and a school. In the 1930s, plans were made to electrify the line and transfer the mainline service to London Underground's Northern line, but these were abandoned after the Second World War. The station closed for passengers in 1954 and for goods in 1957.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Municipal Bank</span>

The Birmingham Municipal Bank was a savings bank in the city of Birmingham, England. It was created as the Birmingham Corporation Savings Bank by a 1916 Act of Parliament on a temporary basis and replaced by the Birmingham Municipal Bank in 1919. In 1976 it converted into a trustee savings bank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Provident Institution for Savings in the Town of Boston</span>

The Provident Institution for Savings (est.1816) in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first chartered savings bank in the United States. James Savage and others founded the bank on the belief that "savings banks would enable the less fortunate classes of society to better themselves in a manner which would avoid the dangers of moral corruption traditionally associated with outright charitable institutions."

Formed in 1836, the Edinburgh Savings Bank was successor to the Edinburgh Bank for Savings, which dated back to 1814. Although formed after the Ruthwell Savings Bank, the Edinburgh provided the model for future savings banks. By the end of World War two, it was second in size only to the Glasgow Savings Bank. In 1975, Edinburgh merged with three other Scottish savings banks to form an enlarged South of Scotland TSB.

The Aberdeen Savings Bank was a Scottish savings bank. It was formed in 1815 and reconstituted in 1845 under the 1835 Savings Act. It remained a small bank until the interwar period when a series of acquisitions made it grow to fifth in size in 1944. It became one of Scotland's four regional savings banks in 1975. In 1983, it became a part of TSB Scotland.

The Glasgow Savings Bank, formed in 1836, had become the largest savings banks in Scotland by the mid-1850s and the largest in the country by 1870. When the trustee savings banks were reorganised into regional banks in 1975 Glasgow became the core of the West of Scotland TSB.

The Sheffield Savings Bank was formed in Sheffield Yorkshire in 1819. For much of its early years it was run conservatively, briefly experimenting with local branches in the 1850s. In the twentieth century, branches were reintroduced, both in the city and outlying towns. By 1944 it was twelfth nationally by size of funds. In 1976, the Bank merged to form part of TSB Yorkshire & Lincoln.

The Perth Savings Bank was established in Perth, Scotland, in 1815. In 1975, it merged to form part of the Trustee Savings Bank of Tayside and Central Scotland.

The West Midland Savings Bank had its roots in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and the merger of its two town banks in 1839 to become the Salop County and Abbey Savings Bank. It remained one of many small savings banks in the Border Counties until the early twentieth century when it led a series of amalgamations. In recognition of its wider coverage, it became the West Midlands TSB in 1937. In 1975 it merged to form the TSB of Wales and Border Counties.

The Liverpool Savings Bank was a bank founded in 1815 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. By 1956, it had grown to be the fourth largest savings bank in the country. The bank became part of the TSB of Mid-Lancashire & Merseyside.

The Manchester and Salford Savings Bank opened in 1818 in Manchester. For a long period, it was the third largest savings bank in the country and at one stage, the largest savings bank in England. Following the Trustee Savings Bank Act of 1975, the Bank merged with seven other local savings banks to form the TSB North West Central.

St Martin’s Place Bank was founded in London in 1816 and for much of the nineteenth century was the leading savings bank in the country. However, it went into decline in the latter part of the century and, in 1896, declined to accept the recommendations of the independent Inspection Committee. The Bank closed its doors and transferred the depositors’ funds to the Post Office.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 H. Oliver Horne, A History of Savings Banks, Oxford, 1947, Oxford University Press
  2. ↑ "LAMBETH TRUSTEE SAVINGS BANK". Discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 "Finsbury & City of London Savings Bank records - Archives Hub". Archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  4. ↑ "Sekforde Street area | British History Online". British-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  5. ↑ Trustee Savings Bank Year Book 1935, Glasgow, 1935,
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.