1953 National Savings Pictorial Map of the British Isles Festivals and Customs

This is a 1953 National Savings pictorial map of the British Isles celebrating their festivals and customs. The map depicts the region from Northern Ireland to the North Sea and from Scotland to the English Channel. Pictorial vignettes populate the islands and highlight some of the festivals and customs celebrated in Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Each vignette is accompanied by its name and location, usually down to the city and county. In certain cases, only the city is given for the location of the festival, such as Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and London. An incredible variety of celebrations are presented, including the Up-Helly-A in the Shetland Islands, which comes from Viking tradition, several different depictions of Highland Games in Scotland, and the Olney Pancake Race in Buckinghamshire. The coats of arms and seals of the counties of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are included all along the border, in the title cartouche, and in a cartouche situated along the left border.

National Savings and the National Savings Movement

National Savings, now known as National Savings and Investment, is a state-owned savings bank in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1861 as the Post Office Savings Bank, the bank was founded as a means for ordinary workers to save money in order to protect themselves for hard times and to provide the government with debt funding. During World War I, the British government launched the National Savings Movement, which was a mass savings movement that encouraged citizens to help support the war effort and pay government debts. The movement was instrumental during World War II and continued on into peacetime to provide people with an easy and safe way to save small sums of money. The program was discontinued in the late 1970s due to lack of interest on the part of the government and the banking industry.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by National Savings, a state-owned bank in the United Kingdom, in 1953. It is not recorded in the OCLC and we are aware of only one other instance when it appeared on the private market.