The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-09 00:00:00

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PENNY BANKS.

The following article on the Penny Bank systera, is from
llonday's Daily News :

The Penny Bank system, in favour of which another
movement is about to be made by Mr. George C. T.
Bartley, aided by the support of Mr. Dudley Smith,
Major Festing, Hon. E. Stanhope, M.P. Mr.
Thomas Hughes, Q C., Mr. Samuel Morley, 'M.P.,
and several other gentlemen, is a plant of northern
growth which for some unexplained reason has failed
to take root in southern soil. Like co-operative
sosieties, Penny Savings Banks have not met with the
success they merit in the south, the metropolis only
being excepted. As long ago as 1859 the Yorkshire
Penny Savings Bank was founded under the auspices
of Mr. Edward Akroyd, M.P., by whose exertions
it was developed to an unhoped for degree,
and became, from an institution planned to help
workneople to help themselves, a genuine and legiti-
mate concern paying its own costs and making a sur-
plus. A similar organisation was started about a
dozen years ago in Ghent, and has, in proportion to
the area of its work, been as successful as the parent
bank in Yorkshire. The ground which these institu-
tions are designed to occupy is that left un-
covered by the old Savings Banks and the Post-
office Savings Banks. It might be supposed that
the last-named institutions would leave nothing
to be desired in the encouragemenat of thrift, by
affording every reasonable facility for putting that
valuable quality into practice. It happens, however,
that the very class of persons most needing training
in the ways of thrift, are rebuffed by the rules and
regulations of the Post Office Savings Banks. The
smallest sum, one shilling, which can be deposited is
too high for the actually poor and needy, who are also
puzzled by the obligation..to sign a formal declaration
of their identity, residence, and occupation, and an
agreement to be bound by the rules, all and every,
laid down in a precise code. Having, despite all these
difficulties, succeeded in getting a small sum into the
Post Office Savings Bank, the depositor finds his
troubles doubled when he tries to • get it out again.
He must fill up a form of application, which is for-
warded to the General Post Office, whence a warrant
payable at the office named by him is forwarded by
post. After signing receipts, and going through a
few more forms, he at last recovers his money
with interest. Now all these ceremonies can doubt-
less be performed with ease by a person of orderly
habits, but it is to attract the careless and impro-
vident that the Penny Banks are instituted. To that
end the actual process of investment is made as easy
as possible. Names must, of course, be given, and
either signed or put a mark to in the bank-book, but
no declarations are required, and small sums are paid
out to depositors without notice of withdrawal. All
sums, from a penny upwards, can be invested, and
it is interesting to watch the various clients as they
come into the central office in Oxford-street, and
the branch offices in other districts. Depositors
are of both sexes and of all sizes, from the full
grown artisan, who invests sometimes a crown
and sometimes as sixpence, to the women and girls
who bring their sixpences, and the boys whose
pennies seldom remain long in the coffers of the
bank. The London boy is a frequent depositor in
the Penny Bank. Perhaps the dignity involved in
the posession of a pass-book may attract him, but
whatever the attraction may be it is unquestionably
powerful. He adds penny by penny to his little hoard
until a few shilling are accumulated, when he, feeling
every inch a capitalist, draws out the whole rum, and
marches off with a bright eye and a straightened
back, as if the world were at his feet. Just before
Christmas he saves very carefully, abstaining rigidly
from drawing on his stock till that festive season
arrives, when his balance is reduced at once to zero.
Possibly his accumulated capital is not always in-
vested in the most judicious manner, but the advo-
cates of Penny Banks contend the way in which
the money is ultimately spent is of little con-
sequence, as compared with the habit of saving
insensibly acquired by practice. This opinion is
in great measure borne out by the fact that boys
return again and again to their bank, and have
no sooner spent one hoard than they struggle to accu-
mulate another. Apparently they learn the lesson
that a month or two of care will put them in possession
of some coveted object, and whether that be a new
wideawake or a cricket-bat is of little import compared
with the valuable lesson learnt in its acquirement.
Penny Banks are equally appreciated by the poorer
class of work-women, to whom the accumulatien of
half-a-crown is a great achievement, Through mud
and slush they come on winter evenings to store up
their pence till the amount saved puts in their posses-
sion some article sorely needed, which but for the
facility afforded them for storing up tiny sums would
perhaps for ever remain in the long list of articles
"done without."
The institution of these Banks almost amounts to
a confession that it is useless to preach the gospel of
thrift without giving abundant facility for putting it
into practice. In a rough kind of way workpeople of
thrifty ideas have endeavoured for a long time past to
aid themselves by clubs and societies of every ima-
ginable kind, ranging from the provision of a Christ-
mas goose to that of.a funeral, but unfortunately the
great majority of these associations are so or-
ganized as to involve the expenditure of more
money for the purposes of refreshment than is stored
up against times of sickness and want. It is the York-
shire mind which first clearly grasped the importance of
saving " dry " money, of putting by a little stock,
without celebrating the addition of every mite with a
libation_ How long it will take to bring borne this
idea to the intellect of the Eastern, Western, and
Southern counties remains to be seen; but the experi-
ment seems worth trying, as the possession of the
smallest hoard begets a feeling of independence un-
known among those portions of the population which
unfortunately look to parish relief rather as 'a thing of
course than a degradation—as a matter of right rather
than of charity.