WW2 women not allowed to have bank accounts in their own name?

[CheeryTulip]

I just heard this as a side fact in a lecture about something else on Youtube. The speaker said his grandmother wasn't allowed a bank account in her own name -& how times have changed. Is this true? What happened if you were single? I'm now wondering about my own grannies...

I don’t know much about it but think the world wars were big catalysts for women having more equality out of necessity?

I just re-listened. He said when they got married they weren't allowed... Still, I wonder when the change came because they'd certainly have lived through it. I wonder if they felt empowered or scared?

single meant something different. There wasn’t any living alone. Further education was for the very few but in halls type accommodation, nurses had housing. Paid in cash, no mortgage, no credit in that sense. My mum needed an introduction from her uncle when she wanted a bank account at that was only the 60’s.
the past was a different world.

It was only made legal for women to have the right to a mortgage/bank account/credit card etc in 1975.

We have had rights for such a short time. And there is a concerted effort to get rid of them.

I think it was down to the policy of individual banks, and how much money customers had in their bank. I know relatives of mine had their own bank accounts when married.

It actuallt wasn't until 1975 that it was written in law that women could get bank accounts, mortgages and apply for credit in their own name which is bonkers.

Many working class people didnt have a bank account even up to the 80s. I met my DH in 1990 - he didnt have one. If your didnt have a mortgage, got paid in cash you didnt actually need one.
But yes, in 1980, I went to the bank to apply for a joint mortgage and they wouldn’t see me without my then husband being present. He had to sign the forms and the mortgage was in his name even though my income was taken into account.
Another thing that might shock you, marital rape only became law in 1991!

Women lived with family until marriage so no need for a bank account.
Those that did live alone/away from home and worked were paid in cash as were the majority of workers.

If you research womens rights UK you will be shocked at how new many of our rights are.

Martial rape was legal in the UK until 1991!

I started working for Barclays in 1989 age 18 and women weren’t allowed to wear trousers in our branches.

There were a lot of progressive things around equality, fair pay, access to services and women being seen as people in their own right that changed in Ireland and the UK as part of their joining the EU.

My parents got married and bought a house in 1983. They only took my fathers income into account, as it was presumed my mother would have babies and not work for at least a while. (Indeed, she did give up work when my brother was born, and only returned part time when I started Primary school, then full time when I was Yr6)

Which was better than my grandmother in the 1950s. My grandfather proposed the day she graduated Medical school. She never worked as a doctor after all those years of study!

My granny was abandoned by her husband leaving her with 3 children.

The council would not accept any correspondence from her with regards to rent arrears, as the house was of course in her husbands name.

She worked nights, paid the bills and wanted a Payment plan to pay what was owed.
They would only deal with her husband despite explaining that she did not know of his whereabouts.

In the end she matched down to the council offices and refused to move unless either “someone with half a brain cell spoke to her” OR a very brave policeman came to remove her!

She spoke to a male manager, and sorted it out there and then.
By this time she told me another month without paying rent had gone by due to the letters and 10p pieces being fed into the phone box on the corner!
Around 1973 I think.

my old granny was supremely proud when I bought my first house by myself at age 23 in the 90”s.

of course many women lived alone, for one thing at that time the world was still absolutely full of WWI widows. There were a tonne of “aunties” in our family who lived alone, mostly widows with grown up kids or no kids, but also unmarried women for example teachers, office workers. They didn’t all live with others.

seems highly likely single women could have got a bank account although I know there’s a shameful history of needing male “guarantors”

My mum wasn't allowed to have a bank account in her own name when she brought a house with my dad in the 1970s before they got married

In the late 70s my mothers income only got taken into account a tiny bit for the mortgage because the bank manager was a family friend. She outearned my dad at the time, and the deposit was wholly her money but that was irrelevant.

Single women and widows could have bank accounts before 1975 but married women could only have them if their husband signed a permission form.

My granny got sacked when she married, my mother in law was sacked when she fell pregnant. I dont think they thought of it as sacked but it was perfectly normal for your employer to expect you to leave. My other gran was working class so she staued as a factory cleaner through

My mum had to get her dad to act as guarantor on banks, credit and rent after she divorced in the early 70s.

Yes! I had a family member who didn't get a bank account until 2003. They were paid in cash on a Friday in a little brown envelope with the amount of hour etc written on the front. And when they were out of work they got a giro cheque through the post and would cash it in the post office. All bills were also paid there. I really don't miss the post office queues on giro days!

Being able to be married but have separate finances is something I have always taken for granted. If I had a joint account with my ex I would have been in even more trouble after we split.

I presumed a post office account was an option for women? Obviously not the same as a proper bank account though.

My dad acted as a 'guarantor' for an unmarried female friend in the early 70s when she was applying for a loan. It was completely farcical as she earned more than he did at the time, but a man's signature was required.

My grandfather died suddenly in 1963, leaving my gran a widow in her 40s. The bank account was in his name and was frozen for months. It was an incredibly hard time for her financially, on top of grieving for her husband and becoming a single parent.

That's interesting, my mum and Dad got married in 1971 and had a mortgage, they were both on it, so you could only get a mortgage as a married women not a single one?

for one thing at that time the world was still absolutely full of WWI widows

It wasn’t just widows. There were so many men killed in WW1 that there were not enough eligible men to go around. I had several great aunts from the WW1 era that just didn’t meet anybody to marry.

Indeed

my granny and mum thought/think they only changed the law because women were put off marriage as they lost rights.

mum remembers being shocked that she suddenly had no ability to open a new account because she needed dad's signature - when she already had an account she opened while single.

OP are you familiar with things like Married Women's Property Act of 1882?

I am unclear when a woman stopped being the property of her nearest male relative as it was a bit piecemeal.

My old next door neighbour got divorced in the 70s and wasn't allowed to get a mortgage as needed a husband for a mortgage. She ended up having to rent and by the time mortgages for single women were allowed she was too old to get one so ended up in a HA flat as a retiree rather than a home owner which she was willing to be and would have been able to pay for had she been allowed.

My grandmother was a baby during ww2 and needed my grandfather's permission to open a bank account when they married at 18 years old. She also had to hand in her notice when she announced her engagement - I don't know if this was the policy in every company, but it was in hers.