For the older ones amongst us Head Office would have been Infirmary Street, later, for all of us it would be Merrion Way.

The first "Head Office" was the home of William Magson Nelson, the first Secretary, in Skinner Lane, Leeds., a house which has long since been demolished.. When the bank was ready to open for business in 1858 it was felt that more professional address was needed, and the Executive Committee signed a lease on the ground floor of 2 East Parade, Leeds, very close to the present junction with Infirmary Street. In 1865 part of the ground floor was opened as the first "Daily Branch" opening every day for normal banking hours. By 1883 the Bank was occupying the whole of 2 East Parade, and by 1890 the Bank had outgrown the premises. Land was bought on Infirmary Street, the site of the old Infirmary, and the new building was opened by the Duke of Devonshire on 7 August 1894.

In 1911 after brief period of liquidity issues the Bank was taken over by a group of major banks and was renamed "Yorkshire Penny Bank Ltd". Temporary offices were taken at 1A Lombard Street, then more permanent premises at 26 King Street (close to Cheapside). In 1923 a branch was opened in the King Street premises and both Foreign and Stock & Share Departments transferred there. in 1930 the branch and departments were moved to Farleigh House, 97 - 99 Cheapside, acfross the road from the final London Office . The appointment of Harry Ashworth as London Office Manager in 1939 and his subsequent promotion to AGM and GM brought General Management to London on a more permanant basis. In its centenary year, 1959, the London Office was moved across the road to the corner of Bow Lane, next door to St Mary le Bow.

General Manager and his team were based in the offices above the branch in Cheapside, London. They had to be close to the City, where the action was. Then, as communication became more efficient and there was no need to be “on the spot” General Manager E.C. Muxlow spent more and more of his time in Yorkshire, with offices on the ground floor of Infirmary Street, the building where the Head Office departments which did not need access to the City were already based. The address of the Registered Office was changed from Cheapside to Infirmary Street in 1973.

Infirmary Street rapidly filled and a satellite office was opened in Queen Street to add to the already existing Allerton House in Chapel Allerton, which had been home to Premises and Supplies Departments as well as the new Data Processing Department. A new centre was built to house the Burroughs computer which was to power the bank’s accounting system and there was a continual juggling of departments to make the best use of the available space. Training School was brought in from the rented offices in Headingly to take rooms in Allerton House and by the Annual Report of 1970 the Head Office departments and their locations were listed as follows: -

General Management based in Infirmary Street but also in London Office.

London Office for Foreign and Stock & Share Departments and Fund Management.

Infirmary Street for Regional Control (including Advances), Chief Accountants, Inspection and Personnel.

Queen Street for Personal Credit and Trustee.

Allerton House for DPD, Training School, Premises and Supplies (which would soon be renamed Stationery).

As we continued to grow Departments continued to be moved: Stationery moved to a purpose built warehouse in Bramley, Leeds, in 1971 leaving room in Allerton House for Trustee, Inspection and Chief Accountants. Personnel moved to Queen Street, along with YBF.

There was still insufficient room, so a new building was commissioned at Merrion Way, aimed at bringing all the departments together. Within a few years even that space was insufficient, and offices were taken in the Merrion House, opposite Merrion Way and later in Brunswick Point close by.

London Office, Cheapside

Queen Street

Allerton House

The new Computer Centre in Chapel Allerton

Merrion Way Entrance

East Parade

Infirmary Street

Brunswick Point (Google streetview)

Merrion Way shortly before opening

The files work in the same way as the Branch files. If the file has been posted then the department name will be in bold and underlined. If it is not then that file is incomplete.

Where a member of Head Office staff has served as a Branch Manager there will be a profile of them in the Branch Manager section on the Manager & Staff page. If a Departmental Manager has not served as a Branch Manager there will be, in due course, a Head Office Manager section on the same page.

Head Office History Files

The Branch History Files all take the same format, being a list of the managers of each branch and a snapshot of the names of staff at certain times in its history; however, the Head Office History File had to take a quite different format. Some Departments were small and consistent, some grew exponentially. Some changed their names, some merged with others, while some emerged from others. Staff numbers also grew, so that to list the full details all those of managerial grade during the lifetime of a department would have been an enormous project.

A branch has a manager, and sometimes an assistant manager, to lead and motivate the staff and to grow the business. The staff are there to “do the work”. We have looked at Departments in the same way, concentrating on the managers who lead and motivate their own staff plus their branches and steer the business. They are assisted by staff who do the work. The difference in Head office is that the staff who do the work might be clerical grades, or, more often, they could be senior managerial grades, graded for their banking expertise or their lending authority. We have ignored this aspect for the file in the knowledge that those who go on to greater heights will appear elsewhere in either this file or the Branch History File. Of course another, more practical, reason is that in researching Banknotes, Pennant and Exchange we found that in most cases the member of staff was simply shown as “transferred to Regional Control”, without any indication as to whether that individual was an assistant bag carrier or a lender with a million-pound limit. Where we have dates people will be listed in date order, otherwise they will be alphabetical by given name.

Use the Index to see the list of departments, then click on the department name to see the sheet for that department. Where there are many staff in a department then the first page will show the “management” and subsequent pages the “workers”

General Management

General Management's team

Finance Division

Finance staff

London Office

Operations Division

Trustee

Branch Control

Regional Control

Regional Control Staff

Advances Control

Advances Staff

Credit Bureau

Debt Recovery

Debt Recovery staff

Asset Structuring

Intensive Care Unit

Securities

Securities Staff

PCD/ICD

YB Home Loans

Inspection Management

Inspectors

Assistant Inspectors

Marketing

Evening & School Banks

Personnel

Training Centre

Typing Pools

DPD

Head Office Services

Branch Services & Help Desk

O&M

Premises

Card Services

Supplies / Stationery

Cash Centre

Messengers & Non Clerical

Catering

Subsidiary Companies

YBF / Asset Finance Head Office

YBF / Asset Finance Branches