A mutual savings bank is a financial institution chartered by a central or regional government, without capital stock, owned by its members who subscribe to a common fund. From this fund, claims, loans, etc., are paid. Profits after deductions are shared among the members. The institution is intended to provide a safe place for individual members to save and to invest those savings in mortgages, loans, stocks, bonds and other securities and to share in any profits or losses that result.
Mutual savings banks are common in New England. New Bedford Institution For Savings was founded in 1825, and converted from mutual to stock status in 1987.
Henry Duncan FRSE was a Scottish minister, geologist and social reformer. The minister of Ruthwell in Dumfriesshire, he founded the world's first mutual savings bank that would eventually form part of the Trustee Savings Bank. He served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1839. At the Disruption has left the Church of Scotland and sided with the Free Church. He was also a publisher, a philanthropist and an author, writing novels as well as works of science and religion.
Henry Duncan by Hill & Adamson
Rev. William Wallace Duncan, Rev. Dr George John Craig Duncan (Henry's son and biographer) and Rev. Henry Duncan
Annan Presbytery by Hill & Adamson from National Galleries Scotland
Mrs Mary Duncan wife of Henry Duncan
