Penny Bank Chambers – The Power of the Penny

Penny Bank Chambers in Clerkenwell, London, is an 1879 building decorated with terracotta friezes shaped like penny coins, constructed to house both artisans' dwellings and a bank allowing deposits from one penny. Designed by Charles Henman and William Harrison for Sir George Christopher Trout Bartley, the structure featured living space for working-class families above the bank. The Clerkenwell branch operated for roughly ten years before closing in the late 1880s.

London · from the walk “Clerkenwell Uncovered: From the World's First Tube to London's Radical Heart” · audio ~4 min · Generated

Penny Bank Chambers, 33 St John's Square, London EC1M 4AA

Who laid the foundation stone of Penny Bank Chambers in London?

Look up at this corner building and let the story sink in... because what you're standing in front of is not just bricks and terracotta. It's a monument to one of the most radical ideas in Victorian London... that even the poorest worker's single penny was worth saving.......... This corner block was erected in eighteen seventy-nine to eighty by the National Penny Bank Company Limited, and it provided shops and artisans' dwellings, as well as a branch for the bank. It was designed by the architects Charles Henman and William Harrison, and built by Aitchison and Walker of Saint John's Wood.......... But the man behind it all had one of the most wonderfully Victorian names you'll ever hear... Sir George Christopher Trout Bartley. Yes, Trout. Born in eighteen forty-two in Hackney, he entered the Science and Art Department at South Kensington as a young examiner. But his real passion was fighting poverty. In eighteen seventy-five, he established the National Penny Bank, so called because the minimum deposit was just one penny. Collectors took deposits from account owners at places convenient to them, like their workplaces or nearby schools, and bank branches were often open in the evenings to allow working class customers to deposit after work.......... Now look up at the facade. The building is faced in stock and red brick, and ornamented with terracotta friezes incorporating the bank's penny-piece emblem. Each one stamped with the bank's name... a row of giant pennies gazing down at you from the eighteen eighties!......... And the grand opening? The foundation stone was laid in May eighteen seventy-nine by Her Royal Highness Princess Christian of Schles-wig Hol-stein, who received a commemorative trowel inlaid with silver pennies and the figure of a workman with a bank book. That princess was none other than Princess Helena, the third daughter and fifth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She was the most active member of the royal family, carrying out an extensive programme of royal engagements, and lending her name to a penny bank... well, that was entirely in character.......... But here's what most people miss. The upper floors were planned for artisans' dwellings... two sets of two rooms and two sets of three rooms on each floor. Families of up to ten would occupy a living space of up to three rooms, and the expectation was that they would deposit any spare cash with the bank downstairs. Live upstairs... save downstairs. The building itself was a machine for creating thrift.......... The Clerkenwell branch, one of more than a dozen across London, closed in the late eighteen eighties, barely ten years after it opened. The lower floors continued in business use, mostly in connection with the jewellery and clock trades... perfectly fitting for Clerkenwell, the watchmaking heart of London. The National Penny Bank itself was wound up in nineteen fourteen, but this building endures... still wearing its crown of terracotta pennies, still reminding us of a time when someone believed that one copper coin could change a working person's life.

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