One of Carlisle’s greatest success stories, The Cumberland building society, is celebrating its 175th birthday.
And a dip into the company’s archive by staff preparing for the anniversary has brought to light a Great Border City character.
The Cumberland, which is one of the oldest building societies still in existence, was founded on April 16 1850 in Carlisle.
It is now Cumbria’s largest financial institution with assets of £3.2bn, 720 staff and 31branches across Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland and south-west Scotland.
For 70 years of its history John Graham Middleton was central, as he rose from junior clerk to society chairman.
John started work aged 18 on January 12, 1915, and finally said farewell on December 31, 1984. In that time he fought in the First World War, took accountancy exams to become society secretary, and retired three times.
Clues to his story were found in minutes of meetings contained within The Cumberland’s archives.
His first weekly wage was 12 shillings and sixpence – worth around £37 in today’s money.
When he joined the army in 1916, The Cumberland paid his mother five shillings a week in lieu of his wage, which was doubled the following year.
The archives reveal that from February 1919 John was back at The Cumberland, married Olive Scott in 1923, and was progressing through the ranks with pay rises.
Then in the early 1930s he passed his secretarial exams and his prospects took off.
After visiting building societies in London in 1934, John persuaded his bosses to update The Cumberland’s bookkeeping system and a Burroughs accounting machine was duly ordered for £480, along with ledger cards, fireproof cabinets and trays for a further £130.
In 1936, following the retirement of the previous secretary, John took charge at the society’s 86th AGM.
He joined the board in 1943, was vice-chairman by 1960 while keeping his day job – something that isn’t allowed today – and became president and chairman in 1962.
That same year John had his first retirement – from his roles as manager and secretary – and was commended for never taking a day off sick.
In 1970, after 54 years of service, he was recognised with a gift of his choosing – an electric heated food trolley.
In 1976, aged around 79, John ‘retired’ again from his roles as president and chairman, but remained on the board for another eight years. He died on December 11, 1985, three years after Olive.
In another remarkable discovery Cumberland staff member Jack Green recently found a touching memento when he bought a history of The Cumberland building society online.
Inside his copy of Through Two Half Centuries from 1850 to 1950: A History of the Cumberland Co-Operative Building Society, was an invitation to the company’s centenary dinner at the County Hotel, Carlisle, on 13 April, 1950.
It was addressed to Mr and Mrs J Burgess, of the family who were the then owners of Cumbrian Newspapers.
Jack bought it from Kerr & Sons, antique booksellers based in Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands. He said: “The books were printed to commemorate CBS centenary in 1950, with a corresponding event to celebrate, hence the invitation. I assume all people invited were given a copy of the book.
“Presumably, the people whose book I bought kept their invitation inside as a memento, and then it somehow ended up in a bookshop 75 years later.”
