Street in the Edwardian age
rely on getting good honest sterling value, nothing shoddy. ICP [sic] has built up his extensive business by giving strict attention to all details and studying the requirements of his numerous patrons. Only cutters of the highest ability employed.”
Given his strict attention to all details, Mr J.C. Purchase would not have been best pleased to have his name wrong in his advert.
Everything
As well as tailored clothes the shop sold ready to wear men’s and boys’ clothes, shirts ties, collars, hosiery, underwear, athletic goods, braces, mackintoshes, indeed “everything for men’s and boys’ wear except boots.” They were also the official district Scouts outfitter as well.
With the large pair of eyes framed by spectacles above shopfront, William Henry Douglas’s premises at 59 High Street stood out. His Edwardian adverts extoll the virtues of his eye test and glasses but by the early 1920s this line of business had been abandoned and he specialised in watchmaking instead.
Our last shop is outside Stourbridge, at Oldswinford. Daniel Oakley’s bakery and grocery stores, established in 1874, offered the “finest home made bread and confectionery and boasted 12 prize medals and diplomas.