Prominent in the SWLSI was the Gibson family - local brewers and bankers, typical members of the Quaker eIite: enlightened, cultivated, serious-minded (though not always deficient in humour), gravitating through disposition and good works to the leadership of their communities. The most notable of them was George Stacey Gibson (1818-1883), whose portrait hangs in the Reading Room near the Victorian fireplace. Gibson was the proprietor of the Saffron Walden and North Essex Bank, a solidly prosperous venture that in 1896, after Gibson's death, joined with others to form Barclays Bank. Gibson's bank building, described by Pevsner as 'an original, self-certain Neo-Tudor design', was built in 1874 by Eden Nesfield, and is now Barclays' branch in Saffron Walden, salient on the east side of the Market Place opposite the library. Gibson was a generous benefactor to many local institutions and private charities, and the tireless incumbent of many civic offices.