Bingley Building Society was a UK
building society, which merged with the
Bradford Equitable Building Society in 1964 to form the
Bradford & Bingley Building Society. Bradford & Bingley fell victim to the
financial crisis of 2007–2010 and is now part of
Santander UK, while its mortgage book is owned by
UK Financial Investments Limited
UK Financial Investments (UKFI) was a limited company set up in November 2008 and mandated by the British government to manage HM Treasury's shareholdings in the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) and in UK Asset Resolution, which held the resid ...
.
Early history
The
Bingley Building and Investment Society was formed in 1846 as a temporary society. As it developed, some of its directors wanted more than the temporary status and in 1851 formed the Bingley, Morton and Shipley Permanent Benefit Building Society (Moreton and Shipley being two local villages). The Society suffered a serious setback in 1864 when the Secretary embezzled funds which had to be financed by a 5% levy on both borrowers and depositors. In 1871, collections began in
Keighley and the Society was imaginatively renamed Bingley, Morton, Shipley and Keighley Permanent Benefit Building Society. In 1878, trade in the woollen mills began to slacken and the Society's level of assets was not exceeded until 1898.
[Tony Whiting, ''Work Makes Wealth A History of Bradford & Bingley Building Society 1851-1959'', 1989, Keighley]
A Local Society
From the beginning, business was conducted “in various temporary offices” until in 1892 the Society bought two houses to convert into its own offices. The Society stayed there until 1911 when it moved into a newly built office block. It was not until 1929 that Bingley opened its first branch, prophetically in
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
; some attempt at geographic expansion, however, had been demonstrated by the increase in collection facilities, by then available in 14 towns in
Lancashire and
Yorkshire. That was also the year that the name was shortened to Bingley Building Society. After Bradford, branches were opened in neighbouring Keighley and Shipley in 1930, and a representative office in
London in 1934.
[
]
Late expansion
It was not until the late 1950s that there was any further significant expansion in Bingley's branch network. An office had been opened in Manchester in 1946 but then between 1957 and 1961 a further 18 branches were opened. These were still predominantly in the north apart from three `Bs` - Birmingham, Basildon and Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
. By 1959, Bingley claimed to be the 18th largest building society and in 1962 moved again to larger offices. All of Bingley's expansion had been organic but there was one peculiarity in 1963 when it was approached by the Kendal Model Benefit Society; this had only 100 depositors and 11 borrowing members; its business was duly absorbed by Bingley. Later that year, an altogether different merger was being planned when Bingley opened discussions with the nearby Bradford Equitable. The Bingley had assets of £47m. compared to Bradford's £57m. there was an equal number of directors from each side; the new Bradford & Bingley Building Society was to be based in the Bingley office and the merger went through in 1964 making it the eight largest society in the country.[
]
References
External links
Santander website
{{Former UK Building Societies
Bingley