Birmingham Municipal Bank
Encyclopedia
Savings bank
A savings bank is a financial institution whose primary purpose is accepting savings deposits. It may also perform some other functions.In Europe, savings banks originated in the 19th or sometimes even the 18th century. Their original objective was to provide easily accessible savings products to...
in the city of Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It was created as the Birmingham Corporation Savings Bank by a 1916 Act of Parliament, to raise money to aid World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. It was the only municipal bank in the country.
History
Suggested by local politician Neville ChamberlainNeville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
in 1915, the bank was originally for savings from earnings, earning interest at 3.5%, with most of the income reserved for the government. It opened on 29 September 1916 after resistance from the banks and the Treasury. It had achieved 30,000 new investors by the end of 1917 and was made permanent in 1919. Its Golden Jubilee was celebrated in 1969 by a Birmingham postal slogan: "Municipal Bank Golden Jubilee 1919-1969".
The name changed to Birmingham Municipal Bank by a 1919 Act which allowed the creation of branch banks. By 1950 there were 66 branches. The bank's headquarters moved from a basement (1916) to the Council House
Council House, Birmingham
Birmingham City Council House in Birmingham, England is the home of Birmingham City Council. It provides office accommodation for both employed council officers, including the Chief Executive, and elected council members, plus the council chamber, Lord Mayor's Suite, committee rooms and a large and...
(1919), to Edmund Street
Edmund Street
__notoc__Edmund Street is a street located in Birmingham, England.Edmund Street is one of a series of roads on the old Colmore Estate which originally stretched from Temple Row in the city centre, around St Phillip's Cathedral, to the northern end of Newhall Street. Originally the estate surrounded...
(1925), and finally to a new building by Thomas Cecil Howitt
Thomas Cecil Howitt
Thomas Cecil Howitt, OBE an eminent British provincial architect of the 20th Century, was born on 6 June 1889, at Hucknall, near Nottingham....
opposite what is now Centenary Square
Centenary Square
Centenary Square is a public square on Broad Street in central Birmingham, England, named in 1989 in celebration of the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status in 1889....
at 301 Broad Street
Broad Street, Birmingham
Broad Street is a major thoroughfare and popular nightspot in Birmingham City Centre, United Kingdom. Traditionally, Broad Street was considered to be outside Birmingham City Centre, but as the city centre expanded with the removal of the Inner Ring Road, Broad Street has been incorporated into...
which was opened on November 27, 1933 by Prince George. It ceased to be a department of the city council in 1976, becoming a Trustee Savings Bank
Trustee Savings Bank
The Trustee Savings Bank was a British financial institution which specialised in accepting savings deposits from the poor. They did not trade their shares on the stock market and, unlike mutually held building societies, depositors had no voting rights nor the ability to direct the financial and...
, and moved to the former central Post Office building in New Street
New Street, Birmingham
New Street is a street in central Birmingham, England . It is one of the city's principal thoroughfares and shopping streets. Named after it is Birmingham New Street Station, although that does not have an entrance on New Street except through the Pallasades Shopping Centre.-History:New Street is...
. Ultimately the TSBs were privatised, and in 1995 became part of Lloyds TSB
Lloyds TSB
Lloyds TSB Bank Plc is a retail bank in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1995 by the merger of Lloyds Bank, established in Birmingham, England in 1765 and traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, with the TSB Group which traces its origins to 1810...
.
Sutton Coldfield branch
In 1935, Birmingham Municipal Bank caused controversy in Birmingham and Sutton ColdfieldSutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...
, when they outlined plans to open a branch in the town for the 4,000 residents who had accounts in the bank. Their plans created an outcry from people from the town, who feared that Birmingham was attempting the annexation of Sutton Coldfield. The protest resulted in a heated debate in the city's council chamber as to whether a written guarantee should be submitted to Sutton Coldfield outlining that they were not annexing the town. A spokesperson for Birmingham later said that they had no plans of annexing the town.
Subsequently, ironically, following the Local Government Act 1972
Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974....
, Sutton Coldfield was merged into the city of Birmingham in 1974.
Building
In 2006 the building was sold to Birmingham City CouncilBirmingham City Council
The Birmingham City Council is the body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local authority in the United Kingdom with, following a reorganisation of boundaries in June 2004, 120 Birmingham...
. The building was granted grade II listed status on October 14, 1996.
In March 2007, Birmingham Opera Company
Birmingham Opera Company
Birmingham Opera Company is a professional opera company based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England, that specialises in innovative and avant-garde productions of the operatic repertoire, often in unusual venues....
produced a new version of Mozart's
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, renamed He Had It Coming, in the bank.
Further reading
- A History of Birmingham, Chris Upton, 1993, ISBN 0-85033-870-0
- A History of the County of Warwick, Volume 7 – The City of Birmingham, ed W. B. Stephens, University of London Institute of Historical Research, Oxford University Press, 1964
External links
- "Civic Enterprise. Prince George opens £85,000 Headquarters of Birmingham's Municipal Bank" (Pathé newsreelPathe NewsPathé Newsreels were produced from 1910 until the 1970s, when production of newsreels was in general stopped. Pathé News today is known as British Pathé and its archive of over 90,000 reels is fully digitised and online.-History:...
)