Bank Marks 150th Anniversary With Its Famous White Roses

3/7/09

Green-fingered employees at Yorkshire Bank in Stafford have celebrated its 150th anniversary by planting a special rose garden using the bank’s famous white roses.

Five team members from the bank’s Financial Solutions Centre in Greengate donned gardening gloves and dusted off their forks and trowels to plant 15 Yorkshire Bank rose plants in the gardens of Katharine House Hospice, Stafford.  

The Yorkshire Bank roses used at Katharine House Hospice were grown specifically by Fryers Nurseries in Knutsford which has been growing roses commercially since 1912.

Thanks to a partnership with the National Trust, the Rutrulo variety of rose is known in the UK as the Yorkshire Bank rose.

Paul Reeves, managing partner of Yorkshire Bank in Stafford, said: “The white Yorkshire rose has been closely associated with the bank for decades and we thought this rose planting would be an excellent way to mark our 150th anniversary.

“We have supported Katharine House Hospice for a number of years now and thought the roses would add an extra splash of colour to the gardens.”

The planting of the roses is one of a series of events taking place throughout the year to celebrate the bank’s birthday milestone.

Yorkshire Bank was founded in 1859 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, by Colonel Edward Akroyd as a philanthropic organisation aimed at providing a means of saving for the working classes.

Over the decades, Yorkshire Bank developed into one of the most profitable regional banks in the UK and today is part of the National Australia Bank Group.

To mark 150 years of working with communities, Yorkshire Bank has launched a special £150,000 fund to help support charities and community groups. 

The £150,000 fund will be used to make awards to projects in four categories – environment, volunteering, education and regeneration. The winning entry in each category will receive the ‘Colonel Akroyd Community Award’, named after the bank’s founder, plus £10,000.