Description:John Ferguson, Secretary of Lilleshall Savings Bank wrote a letter to the National Debt Commissioners on 30th August 1892 telling the Commissioners that the Trustees and Managers of Lilleshall Savings Bank had decided to close the Bank before the end of the financial year.
Ferguson’s letter, which is featured above, describes the reasons why the Trustees had decided to close Lilleshall Savings Bank. He remarks that there had been difficulties in ‘securing the services of Trustees and Managers who were able and willing to spare the necessary time for the management of the Bank’.
Ferguson also suggests that Lilleshall Savings Bank was no longer a necessary institution. He writes that ‘although the institution had served a very useful purpose in its day, the necessity for its existence has ceased’. His comments tell us about developments in local banking, particularly when he adds that the place of Lilleshall Savings Bank had been ‘more than filled now by the Post Office’.
Ferguson concludes his letters by advising the Commissioners that the Trustees were intending ‘to take the final steps for closing’ and referring to legislation stating that that the Trustees of the bank were required to give depositors notice of the intention to close Lilleshall Savings Bank later that year. Ferguson states that the Trustees intended to give a months notice to allow depositors to withdraw their money and perhaps transfer their savings into ‘a post-office bank’.
Documents relating to the closure of Lilleshall Savings Bank reflect the development of local banking during the later nineteenth century.
Click on the images on the left to find out more about the closure of Lilleshall Savings Bank and the Post Office Savings Banks.