Enabling The Poor: the Origin of the Savings Bank

What comes to your mind when you think "Savings Bank"? A quaint 'olde worlde' place where an equally quaint lady issued you National Savings Certificates?

Well, this article shows how the old idea has got young again. The Savings Bank as a concept is admirably suited to the new world of "microfinance", which benefits people in developing countries by allowing them to save some of their earnings for future needs. This page shows how aid charity World Vision is implementing such an initiative in Ethiopia.

All of which takes the Savings Bank a full circle, away from national financial institutions and back to its local, small-scale roots. It all goes back to a largely unsung Scottish pastor, who became a giant of Christian social entrepreneurship.


Henry Duncan (1774-1846) had some experience in banking as a young man, but saw his future as a minister. In 1799 he accepted a pastorate in Ruthwell, a village on the Solway Firth in Scotland.

They were hard times. War with France had brought rampant inflation. The cost of grain went up by over 300% in 15 months, while a farm labourer might earn 5 pence a day. Rural communities were devastated, whole families destitute. Duncan preached faithfully, but he also acted. He bought consignments of Indian corn from the docks and sold it to the poor at cost price. He provided the flax needed for local women to start a cottage industry. He employed the men to turn the land adjoining the manse into a garden which, in time, people would come from miles around to admire.

But Duncan saw that something had to be done longer term. He picked up an idea once touted by Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, but which few had tried so far: the Savings Bank. It would be run on sound business principles, offering secure investment with a fair interest rate; it met a desperate need; and if successful, his model could be rolled out in other places.


In 1810 he opened his books in a formerly derelict cottage at Ruthwell which he had persuaded an Earl to release to him. Today it houses the Savings Bank Museum. After one year, funds stood at £151 - a considerable achievement in those impoverished days. Duncan's other forte being publicity, he founded a local newspaper and with characteristic gusto spread the word about the Savings Bank. The idea caught on, and within five years there were banks around the United Kingdom.

Much came down to Duncan's personal vision and energy. He underwrote the expenses himself (e.g. travel to London to secure legislation), taking no expenses from the bank. He had to be a diplomat, agitator and defender, which at times exhausted him. He became friends with many of the great and good of the day, including the socialist pioneer and benefactor Robert Owen. He became something of a celebrity, but did all he could to escape this, saying his prime duty was to save souls.

The enormity of Duncan's achievement is that this was no city enterprise, no work of high financiers. Duncan did it all on a church minister's stipend! Its genius is the sheer 'portability' of the initiative. What began in a remote village backwater in Scotland became one of the formative impulses behind the Grameen Bank, the "Bank for the Poor" (Grameen in Bangladeshi means 'village'), the foremost microfinance organisation in the world today.

The Power Of Compassion

A contemporary of John Thornton (see last post) also deserves wider recognition. John Howard (1726-1790) had an unpromising start to life, being physically frail and showing no aptitude for learning. But at the age of 24, he inherited riches from his father (a successful London tradesman) and an estate in Bedfordshire from his grandmother.

A life of comfortable obscurity beckoned. But in Howard's case, responsibility seems to have made the man. There were two catalysts. During the "Great Awakening" he had a profound conversion experience, becoming good friends with Methodist pioneer John Wesley (there is a statue of both men together in St Paul's Cathedral in London). Howard also got married. His wife, Henrietta, was a woman of fine character and great philanthropy.

The effects were soon felt on the Bedfordshire estate. Howard was one of few landlords at that time who saw his obligation to provide properly for his workers. He refused to allow them to live in squalor and embarked on a building program of workers' cottages, which still stand today. Howard also ensured that conditions in the workhouse (orphanage) were humane, and funded the education of all children living on his estate.

The death of his wife almost broke him, but it threw him into the work that would startle the civilised world. Having become Sheriff of Bedfordshire, he got to see at first hand the horrors of the prison system. Much like credit card debtors crippled by interest today, entire families were devastated by debt: the head of the house would languish in prison long after the original debt was paid, held there by the 'fees' demanded by jailers, who had no other income. Moreover, prison conditions were overcrowded, filthy and corrupt.

At this point we see the heart of the 'social entrepreneur' awaken. A philanthropist will demonstrate sympathy ('I feel so sorry for their suffering'), even empathy ('I feel their pain because I have suffered too'), and be moved to a gesture of great generosity. But the social entrepreneur demonstrates the compassion that says 'I feel their pain - and I'm going to DO something!'

Howard began lobbying parliament. Over the next 15 years he secured changes in the law:

debtors were to be freed when the original debt was paid;
jailors were to be salaried so that 'fees' could stop;
justices could be held legally responsible for the conditions in their prisons.

To ensure these were enforced, Howard toured the counties of England, visiting and enforcing. He also drew up plans for religious education to given to all prisoners.


His labours did not go unnoticed. Requests came from other lands to visit the reformed prisons. This in turn led to Howard becoming something of a globetrotter, visiting most of the nations of mainland Europe from Portugal to Russia, advising on prison reform and enabling spiritual input to convicts. It was on a trip to Ukraine that he died. His grave there has the epitaph "Whoever you are, you are standing at the grave of your friend". Back in England, a colleague said that "from the dungeon to the throne, his name was mentioned with respect, honour and gratitude".

Giving All You Can

This story appeared on the BBC News website on December 13. An Oxford University academic has pledged to donate one million pounds to charitable causes in his lifetime, and has set up systems for regular giving to start delivering on this undertaking. Already sixty-four people have joined him in this initiative to "Give as Much as you Can".

John Thornton (1720-1790) would have rejoiced. He fits well into this overview of Christian social entrepreneurship because he marks the start of a significant shift. Having begun with sheer philanthropy, giving large sums to good causes, he came to see that strategic giving and the creation of enterprises would benefit the needy more in the long term.

He was one of the richest men in England, having made a fortune trading between Hull and the Baltic states. A devout Christian, Thornton gave the equivalent today of £25,000 to good causes, every year for fifty years (well over a million in his lifetime). He provided food and blankets for the starving. He paid debts and fines to get the poor released from debtors' prison. He supported missionary societies and funded the distribution of bibles.

In time, Thornton realised the greater good that would come from having men of influence in key positions. So he used his wealth to 'buy' the livings of important parishes, so the he could install the minister. Most notably, he brought John Newton, the converted slave ship captain and author of "Amazing Grace", from rural obscurity to the church in Lombard Street in the city of London, which was attended by members of parliament, bankers and successful merchants. This greatly furthered the Evangelical cause, which lay at Thornton's heart.

He also came to see the value of education and training. He aided Lady Huntingdon in setting up her ministers' training college with an interest-free loan. He ploughed funds into a school for native American Indians in Connecticut, and founded Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, a prestigious establishment where a hall of residence still bears his name.

A curious juggling of values had to be maintained. Thornton never missed the chance to make a profit in business, but at home he was scrimping and saving in order to have more to give. What he started was carried on by his son Henry with his friends Wilberfore, Macaulay, Venn and the rest, who not long hence would form the Clapham Sect, the archetypal Christian social entrepreneurs - to whom we shall return.

Is There a Social Entrepreneur in the House?

I've been delving into a new area for me: the subject of Christian "social entrepreneurship". I hope to unpack it a bit in my posts this month.

According to this article, a social entrepreneur is usually a creative individual who questions established norms and harnesses entrepreneurial spirit and dynamism to enrich and help society rather than make themselves rich. We're talking about a blend of philanthropist, visionary, business thinker and 'go-getter' - and for a Christian, a strong faith.

Christian social care is as old as Christianity itself, of course; caring for widows and orphans is foundational to godliness (the Bible, James 1:27). Perhaps the first instance of a more visionary enterprise was Basil the Great's Basiliad in 4th century Caesarea. This was

"the great philanthropic foundation established by St. Basil where the poor, the diseased, orphans and the aged could receive food, shelter, and medical care free of charge from monks and nuns who lived out their monastic vocation through a life of service, working with physicians and other lay people. The New City was in many ways the culmination of St. Basil’s social vision, the fruit of a lifetime of effort to develop a more just and humane social order within the region of Caesarea, where he grew up and later served as a priest and a bishop."

This line continued primarily through Christian hospitals, only really broadening to other areas with the coming of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. As poverty increased and health deteriorated through the factories, a window of opportunity opened for Christian social entrepreneurs. Suddenly prison reform, schools for poor children, cooperative societies, trustee savings banks and suchlike were big on the agenda, and gifted Christian men and women stood up with vision and application to see them through.

In my next posts I hope to pay tribute to a few of these and to see whether, as this site claims, the time is ripe today for a new generation of Christian social entrepreneurs.