08/10/2024
250 years ago, Henry Duncan was born near Dumfries, in the south of Scotland 🏴✍🏼💰🪙🐾✝️
Known as the "Father of Savings Banks", Rev. Henry Duncan launched the world's first savings bank, after being appointed as a minister of the parish of Ruthwell.
Henry arrived to find a community which was very deprived, and started a new initiative to create a self-supporting and locally-based savings bank, which would provide services to the local community from the small cottage in the village of Ruthwell, between Annan and Dumfries.💰
He ran the bank, unpaid, and triggered a movement which was replicated across the country, eventually spreading to Europe, and eventually to North America.🪙
This man's talents and fame don't just lie with his work in the community, in 1818 he paid for the restoration of the stone Ruthwell Cross (regarded as one of the most important and earliest examples of early-Christian history in Scotland - another post is needed to cover that). The cross had been smashed by Presbyterians in 1642. ✝️
He also became the first person to create a scientific report on fossilised animal tracks, after discovering fossil footprints in sandstone in Dumfries and Galloway. 👣🐾🦕
On top of that, he also established several local newspapers, including the Dumfries and Galloway Courier and the Dumfries and Galloway Standard.📰🗞️
The list goes on.... He even met the one and only Robert Burns! ✍🏼🏴
If you want to learn more about this well-accomplished man, and his place in Scotland's history, I'd highly recommend taking a tour of the cottage, which is now a museum. Check out their page "Henry Duncan Savings Banks Museum" and their website, of the same name.
Oh, and swipe for a museum cat (Agnes) ➡️➡️➡️🐈🐱
