Aspects of Thrift in East End Glasgow: new accounts at the Bridgeton Cross branch of the Savings Bank of Glasgow, 1881

Abstract

By 1881 the Savings Bank of Glasgow had become an important symbol in the city. Widely regarded as a dynamic engine for thrift among the working class, its most ardent supporters also believed it an instrument second only to the Church in elevating morality.1 Glasgow’s Lords Provost traditionally presided over the Bank’s annual meetings and newspapers reported on these winter gatherings, usually held in the temples of the city’s commercial establishment. The great and the good attended each year to celebrate the Bank’s achievements: business leaders, Members of Parliament, municipal officials and clergymen lunched together before the official proceedings commenced at either the Chamber of Commerce or the Merchants Hall. With more than 117,000 depositors and funds exceeding £3,500,000 in December 1881, the Savings Bank of Glasgow was not only the largest Trustee Savings Bank in the Kingdom but also a model for others.2 In that year, one Glaswegian in every six, according to the Bank, was a client. Its head office and branches were open to customers six days and three evenings a week. Trustees and managers believed these extended hours suited their clients’ work-week, encouraging thrift and leading to regular transactions totalling 473,582 in 1881. Eighty-six years later Peter Payne, then Colquhoun Lecturer in Economic History at the University of Glasgow, published a seminal essay analysing aspects of depositors’ data accumulated by the Savings Bank.3 He posed three questions he hoped his research would answer: Who were the savers? How much did they Gordon Douglas Pollock IRSS 32 (2007) 117