Ipswich Building Society

The Ipswich & Suffolk Building Society originated in 1849 as part of the forty-shilling freeholders movement, a project which aimed to make home ownership an option for ordinary people, rather than just the landed elite.[3] Initially called the Ipswich & Suffolk Freehold Land Society, its first land acquisition was the Cauldwell Hall Estate, which it divided into 282 plots, selling each to a society member for £23, following a ballot. It then made similar acquisitions and sales in various towns across Suffolk.[4] From 1868 the society started purchasing houses in addition to buying land,[3] its first properties being located on Lancaster Road in Ipswich which it described "high quality, 2-bedroom, workman's houses".[5]

The Ipswich & District Building Society was established in 1875 as a Starr-Bowkett Society. It held an inauguration meeting held at the Ipswich Lecture Hall, featuring a speech by Richard B. Starr, one of the architects of the Starr-Bowkett model. Starr stated that the society was not intended to be a rival to other building societies in the area, but to offer a new model of financial assistance for working-class people.[6]

The Ipswich & Suffolk and the Ipswich & District merged in 1975, with the new entity trading simply as the Ipswich Building Society, a name it retains today.[3] In 2004, after almost ninety years based in Upper Brook Street, Ipswich, the society moved its headquarters to a new venue at the Ransomes Europark. The old headquarters was retained as a branch, however. By 2011, the society had reached 65,000 members with assets of more than £50,000.[7]

In 2020, the Ipswich Building Society launched a proposal for a further rename, to the Suffolk Building Society. It is consulting on the plans and will put it to a vote at the annual general meeting, with a view to implementing the change later in the year.[8]