R Banks & Son (Funerals) Ltd - Beech Hill

R Banks & Son was founded in 1921 by Richard Banks, whose early business combined taxi driving with undertaking. Clifford Halliwell joined as a part-time driver in the early 1960s and later bought the business from Herbert Banks; his son Brian joined in 1974 and became Managing Director when Cliff retired in 1996. Today the firm is led by Brian Halliwell alongside his daughter Carina Halliwell Jones, who serves as Managing Director, making it a multi-generation family business over a century old.

Headquartered at Halliwell House in Pemberton, the firm has grown to 13 funeral homes across Wigan, Leigh, Standish, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Upholland, Skelmersdale, Chorley, Tyldesley, Atherton, Platt Bridge and Preston, including the Beech Hill branch. Services include funeral arrangement and death registration support, pre-paid Golden Charter plans, an online shop for caskets, urns and keepsakes, monumental masonry for headstones and memorials, and a 24-hour on-call service. The fleet includes a Jaguar hearse of the type used at the Queen Mother's funeral and a 1938 Rolls-Royce once used by Winston Churchill.

The firm is a member of the British Institute of Embalmers, the National Association of Funeral Directors and SAIF, and works with Golden Charter for funeral plans, underpinning its stated mission of "Compassion, Dignity & Peace of Mind".