An entry in the East Anglian Magazine of September 1975 was drawn to our attention recently. It was a letter from Mrs Rosa Osborne who was a maid to Rosa Gibb of 7 Cardigan Street, Ipswich. She wrote:
“A friend brought us some old EAMs, including one about the Cobbold family, not only of the brewery but of the bank. I worked for the Gibb family for nearly 50 years. Mr Gibb was manager of Bacon Cobbold’s bank in Ipswich which later became Lloyd’s Bank. He died in 1925.
In those days, the manager lived above the bank and, I have been told, went round each night with a revolver.”
Our architect’s sketch shows Bacon, Cobbold Tollemache & Co.’s new banking premises which opened for business in December 1890. A contemporary commentator enthused “Occupying the finest trading site in the borough, and therefore in the county of Suffolk, the building is worthy of its proud and commanding position, and splendidly suited to the extensive operations of a great local firm which has for more than a century been identified with the agricultural and manufacturing fortunes of East Anglia.”
Our other picture shows the same building some time after it became the Ipswich branch of Lloyd’s following its take-over at the beginning of the 20th Century.
