Lloyds Bank

Time was – and well within living memory – when there were two fixed branches in the village and a third visited as a mobile bank. The last survivor was Lloyds who were on High Street at the house still called Bank House. The bank closed in 1996 – twenty years ago.

At that time a local resident acquired one of the metal signs from the bank and had every intention of using the metal in an engineering project. He never did and now he has given the sign to the museum.

Sign from Lloyds Bank, Market Lavington branch which closed in 1996

This is about half a metre long and certainly serves as a reminder of those pre-internet days when banks served single communities.

 

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Mr Pomeroy in the 1870s

The title for this piece may seem odd when we see the post card that introduces him.

High Street and Market Place – 20th century

This rather careworn card is very much mid-20^th century. It clearly shows the Co-op on the left where we still find a Coop today. It also shows the Midland Bank across the other side of the Market Place.

A bank in 1938 but 65 years earlier it had been Mr Pomeroy’s shop

We know it was posted in 1938.

It was posted in Devizes and the date and time are clearly visible.

It is the message that introduces Mr Pomeroy into the story.

The section in question concerns that corner building.

This corner shop is a bank now but it was where father started with Mr Pomeroy about 65 years ago.

That takes us back to 1873. The 1871 census shows various Pomroys around the corner of High Street and Market Place,

Actually on Market Place was the widow Lydia Pomroy who was a retired linen draper’s wife. Around the corner on High Street there was Charles Draper and family. Charles was a linen draper. Also present is Edward Pomroy who was a partner in the drapery business.

Daniel Pomeroy, who was Edward and Charles’ father, had been running the drapery business since 1851 and maybe earlier.

By the way, the presence or not of a letter ‘e’ in Pomeroy seems to be down to chance!

 

A Difficulty for Samuel Moore

The jam factory in Easterton has feature fairly often on this blog since the end of August when we were able to copy photos in an album which had belonged to William who was old Samuel’s younger son.

But this document, also received in the last few months, came from that collection of bill heads and letters from Holloway of West Lavington.

This letter came to the executors of Mr Holloway’s will from the Capital and Counties Bank Ltd. It is dated December 29^th 1914 and reads

Dear Sirs

You are doubtless aware that the late Mr H J Holloway guaranteed the account the account of Samuel Moore of Easterton for £50 and charges, the total now due being £52-10/4. There appears to be no prospect of our reclaiming the amount from our debtor and therefore have to make application to you for payment and shall be glad if the amount can be cleared off by the end of the year to avoid having to…

…bring it forward into our new ledgers.

So back in 1914, Samuel was in debt to the tune of over £50. That’s equivalent to at least £5000 at today’s rates.

It seems that Mr Holloway’s executors did their duty and paid up for another letter was received on 4^th January.

Samuel’s business obviously grew and he’d have become tolerably prosperous. It just shows that start-up companies can all do with a helping financial hand.

 

The Headmaster’s Story

Our blog story today comes from an unlikely magazine.

Yes, it is the National Savings News Letter for July 1965

One article in it was by Mr Pickering who was headmaster of Market Lavington School.

Mr. F. Pickering, headmaster of Market Lavington Primary School, Devizes, Wiltshire, decided that the school bank system best suited the aims he had in mind for his pupils. In The Headmaster’s Story he gives an analysis of these aims and of the method of running .the bank. His clear, factual account could be a valuable blueprint for any headteacher thinking of setting up savings facilities of this kind, as it emphasises equally the bank method’s simplicity and educational worth.

AIMS

To foster the habit of regular saving through appeal to children’s imagination and interest.

To obtain the maximum educational effect from the system.

To make the saving as permanent as possible.

METHOD

The bank is a regular Wednesday institution, opening at 8.45 a.m. and closing at 9 a.m. It is specially set up and takes the form of a bank counter, with cashiers using deposit and withdrawal forms. The children are found to enjoy this situation and imagine themselves as adults.

The school has a House system, with three Houses, St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick. Each House has its own cashier, its own cashbox, pens and forms. This again is an incentive to help to win the savings flag, which is presented weekly to the House that gains most points (amount multiplied by subscribers).

The savings books, brought in on Wednesday, are returned on the following Tuesday by the cashiers, thereby creating a memory factor for the next day’s savings.

The children become used to a bank routine of cashier, deposits and withdrawals and have to fill in their own form to hand over the counter. The smaller children are helped by the older ones and so get first-hand knowledge of the system, which, after six years of routine, becomes second-nature.

The hours of opening, before school commences, bring the children to school eager to participate in the scheme, arriving well before the official time of commencement. They have the motivation for coming to school even more willingly than usual.

It also makes a minimum of interference to normal timetabling.

The cashiers obtain the maximum benefit from the system, having to balance their registers correctly, before handing it to the headmaster.

Assistant cashiers sometimes take over and they, too, are taught the methods of cross-checking.

The subscribers’ books are brought up to date and checked and any withdrawals are requisitioned.

The practical application is most beneficial. They get a real sense of responsibility, actually handling the register, money and books.

The subscribers all have personal savings books with name and house clearly shown. New entrants to the school are given letters for parents to return, if they wish to join the bank. The children bring any amount from 3d. upwards. As soon as they get £1, a form is sent to the parent, asking whether they wish to change this £1 for a Certificate, or transfer to the Trustee Savings Bank.

Very few requests are made for cash – less than 2% over the past three years. This makes a very satisfactory background for permanent savings and no possible chance of loss, as with loose stamps.

Any books mislaid can be duplicated without any difficulty. The weekly amounts are handed to the local Trustee Savings Bank and adjustments made.

Interest from this account is transferred, by general consent, into the school fund.

ORGANIZATION

The apparatus for setting up the bank consists, primarily, in the structure for the board holding the name. This was printed and mounted on a wooden plank. It is supported by two uprights, drilled to take two bolts for the name-board and two more bolts to fix them to the desk legs which also had to be drilled.

Two desks, old-fashioned type, put end-to-end form an adequate length, with another desk at right-angles, for subscribers to use.

Each cashier has a cash box of the House colour, a register, two ball-point pens, also of House colour, one for the cashier and one for the subscriber, and a quantity of deposit and withdrawal forms.

CASHIER’S DUTIES

To receive the cash and forms from members and check that they balance.

To help younger members to fill in their forms.

On closing the bank, to transfer the amounts paid in to the register, total and check.

To complete the running total for each child.

To balance the totals in the columns and enter them in pencil.

To add the balance column as a check.

To bring the register and cash for verification.

To fill in the individual books, making out forms for children who have saved £I.

To put the weekly total in the House Competition Book.

To report the savings complete.

On the following Tuesday, to hand back the subscription books to members.

TEACHER’S DUTIES (Weekly)

To supervise the setting-up of the bank and to be generally responsible during the time of business.

To check the register and take the cash.

To obtain Certificates (subscriber’s number required), or transfer to Trustee Savings Bank (subscriber’s savings book required).

To check the Savings Competition Book.

To present the trophy to the clerk of the winning House.

To check the members’ books each term.

To make the annual return to the District Commissioner.

GENERAL COMMENTS

It is found that there is no complication of wasted lesson time in the classes, except when the books are returned to members on Tuesdays. This takes but a minute.

Over 60% of the school population are members of the bank, with very little persuasion or advertisement.

The House competition provides the greatest spur to regular saving.

The letter which is sent to parents of new pupils and, from time to time, to those whose children are not yet taking part in this particular school activity, is a friendly reminder that school is not a place apart and that teachers share with them an interest in their children’s welfare.

Dear Parent,

You will be watching with close interest, I am sure, your child’s progress in all the various activities of our school life. Lessons are being learned and habits being formed, both inside and outside the classroom; all helping to develop character and to broaden the outlook.

Among the lessons that can have most far reaching results is the personal practice of ‘thrift’ and all that this implies; self-discipline, self-restraint and self-respect.

The constant and regular practice of saving – the regularity is more important than the actual amount saved – will give your child a sound attitude to the use of money, however little he or she may actually handle, and this training will be a valuable asset in later life.

This is why we have a National Savings Group in our school and I am most anxious that all our pupils should, if possible, become members. If your child is not already a member and you would like him/her to join, would you kindly sign the slip below and return it to me.

Yours sincerely,

Head Teacher.

To the Head Teacher:

Please enrol my son/daughter . as a member of the School Savings Group. I will do my best to ensure that he/she will save regularly.

Signed .

Parent/Guardian.

We wonder if any ex- pupils have tales of the bank or maybe the youngsters of 1965 in the photos could be identified.

High Street – 1978

1978 is now thirty five years ago. On the basis of a life span of three score years and ten, that makes it half a lifetime ago. Roughly half the people alive now won’t remember 1978. It is ancient history to these people.

But at least the folks of Market Lavington can see what their village was like back then because people allow us, at the museum, to have copies of photos. So here we have The High Street in 1978.

Market Lavington High Street in 1978

This photo was taken on a very wet day with a church parade in progress. We have what looks to be a Boys’ Brigade band marching. In some ways they are not the most interesting feature in the photo (with apologies to anybody in that band). They wore a uniform and there is little about it that tells us this was 1978.

At first glance, the street looks similar, but there are differences. Take The Green Dragon for example.

The Green Dragon porch went right across the pavement

The porch outside ‘The Dragon’ goes right across the pavement. It would stay like that for the next twenty years and then a lorry brought it down. Probably a sensible decision was made – to rebuild a smaller porch that didn’t come under threat from 21^st century traffic.

Across the road there are changes.

The people on the left would be outside the chemist’s shop now

The rather shaded people on the left, were they to take up the same position in 2013, would be standing outside the chemist’s shop. . Incidentally, had they been there in more like 1913, they’d have stood by Briant’s Restaurant. Things go full circle sometimes. The old shop and other buildings were pulled down in the name of progress in the 1960s. Then, in the 1990s, shops and other buildings were put back again. In 1978, that building-free gap was a car park. But beyond it there is an interesting sight.

Back in 1978, Market Lavington had banks

Yes, it’s a bank – The Midland Bank. Market Lavington still had its own bank branches back then – Midland and Lloyds had premises in the village. The Midland was able to make use of what had once been Harry Hobbs’s shop. Of course, the branch has now long gone. So too has the name Midland Bank. Perhaps it didn’t sound grand enough for the 21^st century. In 1999 it was taken over by HSBC – The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

Yes, Market Lavington changes, along with the rest of Wiltshire, the country and the world.

The High Street in the 1950s

Today we’ll look at Market Lavington High Street in the early 1950s. It is probably no surprise that in looking back over 60 years we find that the buildings look much the same but the evidence is of a completely different way of life.

Market Lavington High Street in the 1950s

If we start on the left side we have the bakery. We are not sure who ran the business then, but within ten years it had become the Post Office and shop, more or less as we know it today. It’s interesting to see that alongside the post box which is still there, there was a stamp machine. Signs advertise Hovis Bread and Lyons Cakes, but it is what is left outside which indicates a difference in life. There is a child’s tricycle. Until thinking about it for this blog, it hadn’t really sunk in for us that these sturdy carriers have all but vanished. There is also a small child in a pushchair. There probably isn’t a greater risk of child abduction now than there was then – but leaving a child outside a shop was common – the norm. Now you just don’t do it.

Moving down the street we’ll pass what is now the newspaper shop, but then was one of several grocery stores in the village. This is the white fronted building. Next to that is Lloyd’s Bank, now a private home and called Bank House. At that time the upstairs was a good family home – and the good family were the Gyes, Tom, Peggy, Tim and Jonty.

Beyond that, the square-topped building housed the Mundy’s shoe emporium. This was a place where chaos reigned and everybody loved it. The late Ken Mundy remains one of Market Lavington’s popular characters. Everybody has tales about Ken.

A man and a boy are walking past, but basically everything looks very quiet. These days quiet doesn’t really happen. There is also a car. A car! Now the street is lined with them. We are not sure what the make of the car is. It is certainly pre-war.

The Coop was the Co-operative Stores then – another grocery within the village. Of course, it would not have been self-service. Now there’s a major change in shopping.

The last building we see on the left, past The Market Place,  is where Harry Hobbs had his shop. This, later became The Midland Bank and still has shop like windows which Harry’s daughter puts displays in.

Moving to the right we have the butchers at the far end with another old black car outside it. This one is recognised. It’s an Austin 10 and dates from about 1937. This side of Woodland Yard – then entered through a carriage arch, is the former hardware shop. It was probably known as an ironmonger’s in the early 50s and was run by the Phillips family.

The Kings Arms was very much alive and kicking then. Now it awaits its first residents in its new dwelling house form.

On the corner of White Street we can see that E Hayball had the shop which had once been a part of Mr Walton’s empire. Mr Hayball sold a wide variety of goods including shoes and toys and anything in between. Nowadays we have the hairdresser there.

There are readers who love ‘then and now’ pairs of photos. It is hard to do a ‘now’ picture because of traffic on the road. But we will in the future add further back in time shots to compare with this one. And who knows – we might manage a now shot as well.

When banks served villages.

Time was when banks came to people rather than the other way around. In the 1970s there were two banks with premises in Market Lavington, both operating part time. A third company operated a mobile bank which took its turn in Lavington.

In 1967, the two banks with premises both placed ads in the local paper announcing extensions of opening hours.

There was the Midland Bank.

The Midland Bank advertise longer opening hours in Market Lavington

And there was Lloyds Bank – who maybe felt they had to follow suit to keep business.

Snap! Lloyds Bank follow suit and extend opening hours in Market Lavington

Now there are no banks in the village although, of course, some transactions can be carried out at the Post Office.

Peggy Gye, our former curator, was adamant in her belief that the closure of the banks had a knock on effect on other shops. If people were banking in the village, they shopped there as well, but when the banks closed, people had to go to Devizes and so they shopped there instead.

These days, with internet and armchair banking, it hardly matters to many people just where the bank branches are. If we need cash we can use a ‘hole in the wall’ or get cashback from the supermarket. The need for physical buildings and real people to help customers probably is much reduced.

And while shops have closed in Market Lavington, we still have a supermarket, a newsagent, the post office, a butcher, a chemist etc – so it seems that many retail outlets have survived the closure of the banks.

A Market Lavington Bank

Back in the mid nineteenth century, Market Lavington was a market town and it had the services that might be expected in such a place. This included a number of banks.

Gradually, Market Lavington lost some of the services, as it became more a village than a town. Of course, it is a first rate village and boasts many facilities, which other villages will envy. We have two pubs, a small supermarket, a chemist, a couple of hairdressers, a newsagents, a butcher’s shop, a couple of pubs and a thriving post office. There are take-away premises of various kinds, but many will regret that we no longer have a bank although, of course, the Post Office does offer many banking services.

The last bank to close, in Market Lavington, was Lloyds Bank, which closed its doors for the last time on 29^th August 1996.  The name lives on for the building which included the bank was always known as Bank House and it still is.

Memories are kept at Market Lavington Museum where amongst our exhibits we have the money weighing scales that were in use until the very last day that the bank operated.

Money weighing scales from the former Lloyds Bank in Market Lavington

The scales have weights marked, not in pounds and ounces or grams, but in quantities of money such as, £10s of 50p coins

A weight used with the money scales

We have other bank memorabilia, at the museum, so if this happens to be your interest then do visit the museum.