18/02/2021
Today let’s have a look at the Savings Bank Building at the corner of Glassford Street and Ingram Street.
The first part – a 3-storey and basement building on 99 Glassford Street - was built in 1865/6 by John Burnet.
Around 30 years later his son, J J Burnet, added another storey to the building, as well as the 1-storey extension with the dome and an entrance onto Ingram Street.
On the first part of the building you can still find the “SAVINGS BANK” engraving in the windows
On the 1-storey extension – look at the entrance! There’s St Mungo above the Glasgow crest & the reminder that this used to be a bank. JJ Burnet modelled the entrance on the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.
The Savings Bank of Glasgow was founded in 1836. Its roots lay in Dumfriesshire where Reverend Henry Duncan founded the “Trustee Savings Bank” in 1810. Large commercial banks of the time would usually not cater to the working class as they would not accept small deposits and the minimum could have been several months worth of wages for workers. At the Glasgow Savings Bank they could now deposit as little as a shilling. This was hugely successful and it went on to become one of the largest savings bank in Scotland, the largest of its type. After a bit of restructuring here and there – this is what we know today as TSB, the bank with the 3 blue circles in the logo.
About the architects:
John Burnett was born in Kirk O’Shotts in 1814 and started his career as an apprentice carpenter.
He went on to become and architect through working under a John Smith from Alloa. Around 1843 Burnett decided to start his own business. He was quite ambitious, built some free churches and managed to become desirable enough to marry Elizabeth Hay Bennet.
She was a merchant’s daughter and very ambitious herself, so that she became an important force in her husbands business.
Some of Burnet’s work in Glasgow includes:
-the Clydesdale Head Office, 40 St Vincent Place
-the Merchants’ House, 7 West George St
-the now demolished Elgin Place Church
He also designed some large houses for the Glasgow merchants outside the city.
He travelled in Europe, drawing inspiration from different places. One reason to go to Germany was also to visit his son George who studied in Heidelberg. George wasn’t the most fortunate, he died before his father as a result of the collapse of his bamboo bicycle (however that happened…)
John would also go to France to visit his son John James (aka JJ -> who built the extension).
John James, like his father, was subject to his mother’s “encouragement”. He trained in his father’s business and was later sent to France to study but also to train under Jean Louis Pascal, who acted as Chief Inspector for the completion of the Louvre.
John James returned to Glasgow and was quite successful independently before joining his father’s business.
He eventually took over the business and was started realise more of his new ideas – he also felt pressure to keep up with what London was doing -, however these ideas didn’t always sit too well with his clients in Glasgow.
He was very meticulous in his design methods… looking at details from every angle on different models, and then possibly doing it all over again if he wasn’t happy. This meant the practice didn’t make as much money as it could have. At least the staff was able to learn loads.
He spent most of his time in London from 1905 and eventually retired to Edinburgh.
In 1914 he was knighted – so it’s actually Sir John James Burnet
📸of the Oxford Church from google street view
