Research Rabbit Hole – Southampton shops 1926

When local businesses feature in my books, I try to base them on real businesses when I can. The archived Kelly’s Directories are marvellous for finding just the shop, or restaurant I need. They often tell me who the owner was and what other businesses were nearby. Sometimes, there are interesting adverts too. Several shops played a part in Land Fit For Heroes, so I thought I share a few of the things I discovered.

When Percy bought a birthday present for his sweetheart, I spent a long time looking at shops on the High Street and Above Bar, deciding where he would go and what he would buy. In the end, I settled on Gilbert’s Bookshop. It was a shop I had visited myself many times, and I had fond memories of it. When I shopped there, it was at 2 1/2 Portland Street, but in 1926, it was at 24 Above Bar Street, sandwiched between Milward and Sons, boot and shoe makers and Domestic Bazaar Co. This is roughly where Primark is today.

In fact, Henry Gilbert opened his first bookshop in Southampton in 1859, at 13 Bernard Street. The shop moved to Above Bar Street in 1875 and remained there for sixty years. When Henry died in 1869, his son, Henry March Gilbert, took over, and his son, Owen, joined him in 1891. The shop didn’t move to Portland Street until 1939, and I imagine that the old gentleman I remember serving me was Owen’s son, Bruce. When Bruce died in 1991, his son, Richard, took over the shop. It finally closed in October 2002, having been run by the same family for one hundred and forty-three years. I was fortunate enough to find photographs of the shop and of Henry March Gilbert on Plimsoll, and I based my description of Mr Gilbert on the photograph and my memories of the Mr Gilbert I knew.

Percy also went to Maynard’s Confectioners at 89 Above Bar Street to buy a tin of wine gums. Maynard’s began as a small business in Hackney, London, in 1880. By 1906, they had moved to a factory in Harringay. Charles’s son, Charles Gordon, suggested his father made wine gums. Charles senior, a strict teetotaller and a Methodist, was outraged. Eventually, Charles junior persuaded his father that the sweets contained no alcohol and wine gums went into production in 1909. After this, Maynard expanded to other locations, including Southampton, and ultimately owned one hundred and forty shops.

Once Percy had bought his sweetheart a present, he took her to a cafe for a birthday treat. I based the cafe on the Cadena Cafe. I remember it from my childhood. It was on Above Bar Street, roughly where the West Quay entrance is today. My memories weren’t much help because the original Cadena Cafe, opened in 1922, was destroyed by bombing in 1940. The one I remember was built in 1954. Between the bombing and the rebuilding, the cafe operated from a makeshift mobile shop in a caravan. Sadly, I couldn’t find any photographs of the inside of the old cafe, so I had to use my imagination. I did find an old menu on line though. Imagine if cafe prices were as cheap now!

Another shop that featured in the book was Jones’ Tobacconist at 194 Northam Road between Belvedere Terrace and Cable Street, roughly where He Man Dual Controls and the advertising hoardings are today. This was close to Melbourne Street, and in the story, it was where Percy bought his cigarettes. A couple of doors down, at 108 Northam Road, was Charles Robinson, the butcher, where Laura and Hetty Porter both shopped. When Charles Robinson told Laura about the burglary, it set off a chain of events that quickly spiralled out of control.

I couldn’t find photographs of the parade of shops in 1926, but I found an older photograph, which gave me a good idea of what they were like. Although the character of Robinson, the butcher, is based on a real person, everything about him in the book is made up, and as far as I know, Jones’ tobacconist was never burgled.

The next crime was an attempted burglary on Emanuel’s Jewellers on the corner of East Street and High Street. This is what happened — ‘There was another one last night. They tried to get into a jeweller’s shop on East Street. Mr Emanuel’s no fool, though. He leaves his dog loose in the shop at night. A great big bullmastiff, it is. The villains got more than they bargained for, and no mistake.’ Again the shop is real, the Emanuel family owned a watchmaker, jeweller and pawnbrokers shop. I doubt if they kept a great big bullmastiff to guard the shop, and the attempted robbery was all in my imagination.

The real Emanuel’s were a prominent Southampton family and their imaginary counterparts will play a part in later books. Michael Emanuel, the son of Samuel Michael Emanuel, was a justice of the peace and served as mayor of Southampton in 1895. He also served as warden of the Southampton Hebrew Congregation for 26 years and was the congregation’s president from 1896 until 1911 and its secretary from about 1806 to 1911. More information about them can be found in Sotonopedia.

Another burgled shop was Petheridges newsagent, at 21 Onslow Road. Again, the burglary was imaginary, but the shop was real. Today it is an internet cafe, not far from the corner of Lyon Street. The final robbery didn’t work out as planned. The target was The Birmingham and Coventry Cycle Company, at 149 and 151 Above Bar Street, roughly where Guildhall Square is now. The proprietor was Mr A H Apsey. Most working-class men couldn’t afford cars, so bicycles were a popular mode of transport in the early twentieth century, and the business had been in Southampton for some time, originally operating from premises in Oxford Street and Waterloo Place. The attempted robbery of the bicycle shop may not have been real, but it was a turning point in Land Fit For Heroes. If you want to know what happened, you will have to read the book.

The businesses mentioned in Land Fit For Heroes are all long gone, and none of the buildings survived the Southampton blitz, but that is a story for another day. Researching them and finding photographs to add colour to my descriptions was an interesting exercise, made possible by the online versions of Kelly’s Directories. If you’d like to browse them yourself, they can be found here.

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