03 Feb History Of St James’ Safe Deposit, Manchester
In the 19th century Manchester was one of the wealthiest cities in the world thanks to “King Cotton”. There were hundreds of cotton mills in the surrounding towns and supporting industries including a large number of cotton printing companies.
After the boom years of the 19th century, the cotton industry suffered a serious decline and by 1910 a large number of cotton businesses were struggling to survive, including the calico printers.
It was therefore decided that they should merge into a single entity – The Calico Printers Association, known as the CPA
In 1909 the St James’ Theatre in Oxford Street had been seriously damaged by fire but the beautiful foyer of the building was saved.The newly formed CPA decided to rebuild the site as their headquarters and the result was the outstanding Edwardian office building we know today as the St James’ Building. When entering the main building, visitors can still admire the old Victorian theatre foyer which now acts as a reception area to the many offices above.
So why did the CPA incorporate a Safe Deposit into this new building?
This was because many of the original CPA companies owned a wide range of safes and it was decided that a high security area in their new building was needed to house them. It was therefore agreed by the directors that a steel lined vault should be constructed in the basement of the new building which became The St James’ Safe Deposit Company.
To defray the high cost of building this vault it was decided to offer high security safe deposit boxes to the general public. One of the strong rooms was lined with 846 safe deposit boxes and and in October 1912 the new Safe Deposit opened for business.
The CPA continued to run the Safe Deposit until 1970 when it was sold to a Mr Robert Shires whose family had been successful in the Lancashire cotton industry for several generations. Robert Shires owned and ran the business until 1991 when he sold it to the present owner.
Today over 100 years since they were installed, the original safe deposit boxes are still used by some of our customers. Other customers occupy our original CPA company safes which are still pained in the old company colours of brown and cream.