Birmingham Municipal Bank
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Birmingham Municipal Bank was created in Birmingham, England as the Birmingham Corporation Savings Bank to raise money to aid World War I by a 1916 Act of Parliament raised by Birmingham MP Neville Chamberlain. This was the first municipal bank in the country.
Suggested by Neville Chamberlain in 1915 it 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.
The name changed to Birmingham Municipal bank by a 1919 Act which allowed the creation of branch banks. In 1950 there were 66 branches. The bank moved from a basement (1916) to the Council House (1919), to Edmund Street (1925), and finally to a new building by Thomas Cecil Howitt opposite what is now Centenary Square at 301 Broad Street (1933). It merged into the Trustee Savings Bank (TSB) (now part of Lloyds TSB) and moved to the old central Post Office in New Street.
The building on Broad Street was bought by Birmingham City Council in 2006 [1]. It is now grade II listed.
[edit] References
- ^ [ http://www.kingsturge.co.uk/news/birmingham-city-council-buys-landmark-building-on-broad-street.htm]
- 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
