Martins Bank had 16th century origins, and was said to have been founded by Sir Thomas Gresham, who began trading in Lombard Street at the sign of the Grasshopper.
In 1918, the bank was acquired by the Bank of Liverpool, which had been founded in 1831 in Liverpool, England, and the name of the merged bank became the Bank of Liverpool and Martins Ltd. However, the name was shortened to Martins Bank Ltd in 1928. By then, the bank had expanded to some 560 branches and had a logo featuring a grasshopper, which was the family crest of Sir Thomas Gresham.
A new headquarters building for Martins Bank Ltd was designed by the architect Herbert James Rowse in the Classical Revival style and constructed in 1932 in Water Street, Liverpool. [1]
The bank was bought by Barclays Bank in 1969, when all of its seven hundred branches became branches of Barclays. The grasshopper logo was retained for part of the combined business, until at least 1974.
Trivia
- In 1901, the activities of the Martins Bank employee Thomas Goudie formed the subject of arguably the world's first filmed crime reconstruction, The Arrest of Goudie, filmed by Mitchell and Kenyon. Goudie had stolen £70,000 from the bank to cover his gambling debts, and was subsequently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.
- In early episodes (1968) of the BBC comedy serial Dad's Army, Captain Mainwaring, Sergeant Wilson and young Pike work at the Walmington-on-Sea branch of Martins Bank. In later episodes, this was changed to the fictional Swallow Bank. However, in the film version (1971), the cast are seen working in a branch of Martins Bank. The location used was in Chalfont St Giles, although it is unknown whether this was a genuine bank branch.
- During the Second World War, a large part of Britain's gold reserve was stored in the Liverpool branch of Martins Bank. This was dramatised in the film The Bullion Boys.
References
Bibliography
- Four Centuries of Banking: (Volume 1 - The Grasshopper and the Liver Bird - Liverpool and London, and Volume 2 The Northern Constituent Banks) by George Chandler and illustrated by the Bankers, Customers and Staff associated with the constituent banks of Martins Bank Limited. 1
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