Lucy Newton

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

Abstract: British retail banks tended to serve affluent members of British society in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. However, after 1945, banks increasingly sought new types of account holders to diversify their customer base. One tactic was to offer savings accounts, in particular to children. A means to encourage children to open a savings account was to provide free gifts, including piggy banks, savings stamps (with wallets), novelty money boxes, sports bags, and magazines. Encouraging saving had many broad ‘public’, as well as individual, benefits. These included saving to enable future life goals; to relieve financial stress and withstand financial hardships in adulthood; to allow the saver to help others; to gain financial independence and avoid debt; and help to achieve a ‘good’ life for the saver. But British retail banks were also facing increasing competition, and this served as a motivation to seek new business. Therefore, British retail banks in the twentieth century offered a new savings service that potentially provided a broad ‘public’ good and individual benefits but was also motivated by the need to meet increasing competition. This paper will examine how the banks approached these savings initiatives through an examination of artefacts held in the archives, in addition to supporting written material promoting savings schemes. This follows previous work by the authors using physical artefacts of British retail banks by analysing uniforms, war memorials, bank notes, portraits of bankers, and bank architecture. We believe that using artefacts provides a fruitful and novel methodological base from which to analyse historical issues. In this case, it will help us answer questions around the provision of savings accounts to children in the second half of the twentieth century. For retail banks, did this promote public ‘good’ or private gain? Or both?

2026 London

Abstract: This paper investigates the representations of people, place and community in banking and the co-creation of wealth in the British Empire. We focus, specifically, on the New Zealand (Aotearoa) banks, which were based in London as part of their formation in the nineteenth century. New Zealand was founded in 1841 as a settler colony in the British Empire. Its establishment resulted in the exclusion of the Polynesians, who had created a distinctive Māori identity there. New Zealand became a dominion in the British Empire in 1907 and it gained independence in 1947. While New Zealand remains a Commonwealth country and retains links to London, several banks moved out of their London offices in the second half of the twentieth century. Despite such changes, structural inequalities also remain in society. We examine the iconography used in architecture and the artefacts displayed in these buildings to represent the New Zealand bank in London. London-based New Zealand banks had the dual task of representing their community in New Zealand, but also appealing to Eurocentric society there. They acted as agents of empire; building connections to co-create wealth for those in the colony (and later dominion) and also in London, as a global financial center. New Zealand banks had much choice in the design of their organization but also its iconography. Were the London offices headquarters rather than overseas branches? Should the bank build offices in London and adopt design specific iconography and motifs? Or move into existing buildings with a well established social capital? These choices — and the decision leave these buildings — said much about the bank’s chosen identity and who it sought (or not) to represent. To answer these questions about banking communities and financial inclusion, the paper uses photographs and artwork, archival material and popular material from the London press.