In Edwardian days
tea fancies, birthday, wedding and Christmas cakes” as well as its “wellappointed tea room for afternoon teas and light refreshments.”
Fred W. Biggs was a pharmacist with a shop at 151 High Street. As well as dispensing prescriptions, patent medicines and developing photographic plates and films, he sold Biggs Infant Preservative and Biggs Prepared Malted Food for “Peaceful nights, happy days, joyful mothers.” Another line in his advert reads, “If you want to feel well and enjoy life take Biggs Dinner Pills. One pill is a dose. One box lasts a month.”
William Henry Warrilow also had a shop in the High Street with a “large and complete stock of every kind of footwear to select from,” including “hunting and livery boots.” He also had “first class workmen” in his repair department with only the best materials used.
There was another busy window display at Clarke and Simister, at 150 High Street. They were “practical tailors, hatters, hosiers and general outiftters” who offered “one price to all – and all goods marked in plain figures.”
Implement
Samuel Fiddian’s Stourbridge Ironmongery and Implement Stores occupied the Longcroft Buildings in the High Street. He sold “every description of general ironmongery, builders and carpenters tools” with “farming implements and fittings of all principal makers kept in stock.” And he had a team of “competent men for gas and electric work, telephones, sanitary and general repairs.”
A rarity today, but a common sight in pregreat War days, when horses still largely ruled the roads, was Clarence Luke Taylor’s Stourbridge Corn Stores in Market Street. The outside of his premises were decorated with slogans for a wide range of animal feeds and the photograph shows a couple of drays loaded with sacks of meal. C.L. Taylor sold hay, straw, cut chaff, oats, beans, bran, poultry corn, pigeon feed and a range of brand names goods long forgotten today, like Thorley’s Lactifier, Old Calabar, Beach’s Gruel for horses and Ovum chicken food.
Hatters
The discerning gentleman would find all his essential requisites at Dunham and Co., “practical hatters, hosiers, glovers and shirtmakers,” in the High Street. They offered “the latest styles in shirts, collars, ties, vests, pants, gloves, hose and half hose, braces, umbrellas, etc.” Their shop windows were filled with hats and caps on one side and shirts on the other.
Ladies could shop with Miss Eliza Gough at 130 High Street. Her shop front was quite modest but inside she specialised in ladies’ blouses, corsets, hosiery and gloves and “children’s millinery, costumes and pelisses.”
The redevelopment of Stourbridge town centre removed many of these old premises all together and those that have survived have had their street level facades changed so much as to make them all but unrecognizable today. But do readers have a connection with any of these old businesses and can tell us some more about them? Please email dshaw@blackcountrybu gle.co.uk or contact the Bugle at the Dudley Archives Centre, Tipton Road, Dudley.