Skipton Building Society is gearing up to celebrate its 150th birthday on Thursday.

Parties will be held at the society's branches and a host of community projects are being supported.

Little could those local citizens meeting in the Town Hall back in May 1853 realise they were about to establish an organisation which today is easily the district's principle source of employment.

Building societies sprang up in towns and cities across the country during the Industrial Revolution although at first they were "terminating". This means that members unable to find the finance to build a house for themselves paid into a society and the funds were used to build a number of houses for all those participating. When the final member had been housed, the business was closed.

But societies emerged whose members had no desire to build a home but did wish to invest and secure a return on their savings. The "permanent" building society was thus born.

Skipton's new paper, The Craven Herald was to report: "The Society differs from the old building societies in this, that it is not established for the express purpose of building a certain street or row of houses, but what is much superior, it enables a man to build what he likes, where he likes and as he likes; or, if a member prefers to buy a house, he can do so, and the Society, if they think the purchase is a good one, will advance the money; and if he wished neither to buy nor build any buildings, he will receive four and a half per cent compound interest, calculated monthly, and can withdraw at any time on giving a month's notice; thus constituting an investment good in itself, and especially suitable for the weekly savings of the working classes."

A year later the Craven Herald was to report on the first annual meeting, held in Skipton Town Hall.The directors, said the Herald, were able to report that the fledgling society's affairs were "in a very satisfactory and promising condition".

The building society had set aside at its formation a contingency fund to pay salaries and other expenses amounting to £120 and five shillings but had used just under a third of that, showing that from the first the society had a reputation for prudence.

Said the Herald: "The fact of an average saving of upwards of £10 to each member of this society during the past year is a proof of the careful and prudent habits of the members but the cultivation of which they not only not only benefit themselves but society at large."

As it continued to grow, it was necessary to move from the first humble offices to larger premises elsewhere in the town. Then, in the Society's 75th anniversary year, a new head office was opened on Skipton High Street by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The very same premises still house the Skipton branch today. This move was swiftly followed by the name being shortened simply to what we know today - Skipton Building Society.

From these modest beginnings, the Society has gone from strength to strength. In 1928, business was expanded to London, through agencies and the first fully staffed, full-time branch outside of Skipton opened in Harrogate in 1947.

In 1962, real growth began to take place outside of the heartland with the opening of Guildford branch - the first proper branch in the South of England.

In addition there were several mergers of other local building societies into the Skipton such as Ribblesdale, Bury and Otley.

At the end of the 1980s, John Goodfellow was appointed as the new chief executive and he has overseen a new strategy which has proved so successful for the society and separate it from its contemporaries over the next decade or so.

Increasing competition in the core business areas of savings and mortgages, meant that it was important to find alternative means of income. By the end of the 1990s, the Skipton Group had seven subsidiary companies. As well as this they had bought and sold a company, enabling them to pass almost £50 million of profit back to its members.

Since then, growth of the group has been rapid and there are now 17 companies under the Skipton umbrella, providing financial services and related advice to members, customers and to businesses across the country.

Such was the growth of the Society that new headquarters needed to be found and in 1991, the new Head Office at The Bailey was opened by another Chancellor, Norman Lamont.

There are now 80 branches across the country, stretching from Aberdeen to Plymouth and the society now employs over 1,000 staff and the group over 3,000. In 2003, 150 years after its inauguration, Skipton Building Society is still a mutual organisation that has gone from humble beginnings to the business it is today.