The first mention of banking facilities in Burton Latimer is contained in the 1896 Annual Report of the Stamford, Spalding & Boston Banking Company which states that the company had set up an agency in Burton Latimer the previous year. There are entries in the 1898 Kelly's Directory which lists William F Neilson as the manager of the Stamford, Spalding & Boston Banking Company's agency and Thomas G. Fraser as the manager of the Northampton Union Bank in the village. They would have travelled here from Kettering once a week to open an office in a room hired for the purpose. Denton's Farm in the High Street, now demolished, is known to have been used by a bank and it is quite probable that this was the site of the S.S.& B. bank.
The Stamford, Spalding & Boston Bank was aquired by Barclays in 1911 and in a publication entitled: 'The Industrial Advantages of Burton Latimer', probably promoted by the new Urban District Council in 1923, the following paragraph appears: "Banks - The National Provisional Bank have a local branch which is open on Tuesdays and Fridays, worked from their Kettering office. Messrs. Barclay's who have been attending the town on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays have recently purchased the modern buildings erected by the Coffee House Ltd. These buildings will be converted into a bank, and a resident manager will reside on the premises, and daily facilities will be available. Barclay's have used this buiding ever since.
Successive managers lived with their families in the accommodation provided above the bank, or on the ground floor to the right of the main central door. However, there has been no resident manager since about 1980. The Post Office leased the ground floor rooms on the right of the main door from c1960 to 1975 and shared the main door.
The National Provincial Bank, which had acquired the Northampton Union Bank in 1920, was listed in Kelly's Directory from 1924 to 1940 as having a sub-branch that opened on Tuesdays and Fridays from 10am to 12.30pm, managed from its Kettering branch. This branch was situated in the front room of Mrs. E.Y. Fox's house at 7, High Street, between the Co-op Central Stores and Alfie Coles' barber shop.
Building Societies
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The building society sector has been represented in the town but they have now gone.
The Anglia Building Society, one of whose parent companies was the Northampton Town and County Freehold Land Society (formed in 1848), merged with the Nationwide Building Society in 1987 and both companies have been represented in Burton Latimer in premises at 36 and 90 High Street, but closed in the late 1990s.
When Jonathan Brown set up an estate agency at 119 High Sreet in the 1990s he acted as agent for the Market Harborough Building Society, but this was short-lived.
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The Nationwide Building Society at 90 High Street in 1995
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For a brief period between 1878 and 1895 there was a Burton Latimer and Neighbourhood Freehold Benefit Building Society, set up by a group of working men to help provide finance for those of their number who wished to buy the houses that were springing up in the area then known as the "New Town Building Estate" which we now know as Duke Street, Alexandra Street and Finedon Street and Rosebery Street, Spencer Street and Newman Street.
This was, of course, a building society in the original meaning of the term. Its members would pay a monthly subscription to a central pool of funds which was used to finance the building of houses for members and to attract further funding to enable further construction. In 1879 the Society was represented at a Licencing Court to object to the granting of a licence and change of use for an oudoor beerhouse on the corner of Finedon Street and Finedon Road to become a public house. In court it was said: "Burton Latimer Building Society objected to the licence because it would depreciate property in the neighbourhood, and would be likely to interfere with the useful work the society was doing in the parish." In 1890, at a meeting of the Society, it was announced that it had a surplus of £70 to £80 and it was resolved to spend some of it on making up the roads preparatory to handing them over to the Highway Board. It was also decided "not to brick the pavements only to curb them and put chipping on".
The Burton Latimer Building Society was dissolved and was taken off the Register of Building Societies in 1895, possibly because, as was the case elsewhere, its founding members had all built their houses by that time.
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