Early in 1833, Mr. Sikes entered the service of the Huddersfield Banking Company.  It was the second joint stock bank that had been established in England.  The prudence and success with which the Scotch banking companies had been conducted induced the directors to select a Scotch manager.  One of the first resolutions the directors adopted, was to give deposit receipts for sums of ten pounds and upwards, for the purpose of encouraging the working classes in habits of providence and thrift.  Mr. Sikes, being somewhat of a favourite with the manager, often heard from his lips most interesting accounts of the provident habits of the Scotch peasantry, and was informed by him of the fact that one of the banks at Perth paid not less than twenty thousand pounds a year as interest on deposits varying from ten to two hundred pounds each.

In 1837, Mr. Sikes became one of the cashiers of the company.  This brought him into direct contact and intercourse with the very class which, from the direction his mind was taking, he so much wished to understand,—­namely, the thrifty portion of the industrious classes.  A considerable number of them had sums lying at interest.  As years rolled on, Mr. Sikes often witnessed the depositor commencing with ten or twenty pounds, then make permanent additions to his little store, until at length the amount would reach one, two, or, in a few instances, even three hundred pounds.  Mr. Sikes would often imagine the marvellous improvement that would be effected on the condition of the working classes, if every one of them became influenced by the same frugality and forethought, which induced these exceptional operatives to deposit their savings at his bank.

About that time, trade was in a wretched condition.  The handloom weavers were almost entirely without employment.  Privation and suffering prevailed on every side, and these were often borne with silent and noble heroism.  Various remedies were proposed for the existing evils.  Socialism, chartism, and free trade, were the favourites.  Theories of the wildest and most impracticable character abounded, and yet even in those dark days there were instances of men who had to some degree made the future predominate over the present, who could fall back upon their reserve in the Joint Stock or Savings Bank to tide them over into better times.  Believing in the beneficent results of free trade, Mr. Sikes was equally convinced that national prosperity, as well as national adversity, might be attended with great evils, unless the masses were endowed with habits of providence and thrift, and prepared by previous education for the “good time coming” so eloquently predicted by the orators of the League.