Shopping in Edwardian Mumbles by Carol Powell M.A.

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Let us take a look around the shops in Mumbles before the Great War, before the days of supermarkets, enterprise zones and on-line shopping, when each premises would have been a specialist shop run by its own proprietor and his or her staff.

My grateful thanks to some of our past villagers, Llewelyn George Phillips, born 1910 above Leaker's dairy in Newton Road, Mrs. Jane Milsom, daughter of Sidney Brick, the ironmonger of Newton Road and Archie Webborn, son of James Webborn, owner of Bracelet Bay tea-rooms, for their memories of their Edwardian childhoods in Mumbles.

          The two main streets of the time were 'The Dunns', which had shops on both its sides and Newton Road, which had them on only one side; that of the White Rose, apart from one building on the opposite side, W H Jones (HSBC Bank).

 (In brackets are the shops of today).

 The Dunns, showing Jenkins Ironmongers on the entrance to Oystermouth Square

 Starting at Sander's Corner, greengrocer (White Rose)

The Dunns, Landward side first:‑

 Ted Priddy, the Barber (White Rose)

J. Brayley, the Blacksmith (White Rose)

Sam Peachey's house  (Elizabeth Antiques)

Across the road to the seaward side, (this was demolished in the early 1970s) starting opposite the junction with Newton Road:‑

Mr Cobb, the Fishmonger

Jack Bailey, Butcher

Strawbridge, Baker

SOS, shoe repairs

 Frank Peachey, Grocer

Miss Killa, Shoe Shop

Oddfellows' Hall

Ward, Grocer

Thomas, the Draper

Banfield's, confectioner and Ice‑cream (Boots)

Eastman, the Butcher (CJs)

 Hake's, the Draper, which from 1914, became our much-remembered and long- serving, Mr. Arthur Edgar Kemp's (Co-op)

 B & A, Butcher

Fursland, Greengrocer (taxi office)

Dick Froome's sweetshop (Barber)

Kursaal (Mumbles New Cinema, 1922 / Tivoli Cinema, 1929 / Co-op Supermarket 2017)

Miss Andrews, the Fish (XXX)

Williams' Garage (Surf Shop)

Mr. Oates, Dairy Produce

 Up Newton Road, starting at the White Rose Hotel

 Mrs Rosser's, Greengrocer (fish shop)

J. John & Sons,  Painter, Plumber and Decorator  

Mrs. Baskett, paper shop

M. Tucker, tobacconist and newsagent. Later, it belonged to Mrs. Elizabeth John and her daughter, Gertie, Newsagents,  (Lewis News).

The Misses Emma and Ellen Taylor, Drapers (Bryn Lewis)

Leaker's Dairy, later owned  Mr. C. Smale( Cash Hardware)

Mr. Richard Beynon seedsman and ironmonger and then, from  1912,

Across Walters Crescent were:-

National Bank (Newbury's)

Gospel Hall

 Beyond Chapel Street were:-

 Treharne, butcher(XX)

 E. Smale, butcher (Jabbawocky, children's clothes)

 Across Stanley Street

 Across the road, Junction of Castle Square/Newton Road

Mrs. Davies, 'everything from a pin to a dresser' (Estate Agent)

 On the Queens Road/ Stanley Street? Kings road corner

 Thomas Dairy (Beauty Salon)

Back down along The Parade  starting from Western Lane corner

 Fone Ford, watchmaker and repairer(XXX)

 The two Misses Nixon, Drapers(XXX)

Llanover dairy, bacon and dairy produce (XX)

Chip Shop (Yallops chip shop)

 Beyond the entrance to Hall bank

 Will Jones, Baker,

Barber Shop (XX)

Mr. Clare, photographer, who captured many scenes which are shown today

Buxton's sweet shop

Beyond Village Lane

The Antelope Public House

Thomas, the grocer

Skinner's the grocer

Rogers, the butcher

Arthur Michael, the butcher

Further along was Miss Orrin at Southend Post Office

There were many more shops in the small streets around such as Mrs. Holmes's sweet shop in Park Street, Sally Davies's cake shop in John Street, Miss Hullin's, sweet shop nearby, John Morris's butcher's shop in Gloucester Place and Tom Delve's faggot shop in Woodville Road.

 Prices in the shops during those years may seem cheap to us, but, of course, wages were much also less then.

For example:— In 1911, ‘Good’ butter was 1/‑ per lb; lump sugar, 2¼d per lb; currants, 3½d a lb; biscuits, 4d a lb; jams were 1 shilling for a large jar and potatoes 4/3d per bag or 12lb for 6d and 6lb for 3d. A new fuel, called cobble fuel, was 20/‑ per ton.

          For household linen, Mr. Hake's sale prices were 6d for a pillowcase, Horrocke's sheets were 8/11d per pair and damask tablecloths for 2/6½d. For ladies' wear, there were camisoles for 1/3½d and W.B. corsets at 2/6½d. The Mumbles Press had cost 1d, but was reduced to ½d in 1913.                                                                  

          Wages were generally low, but some jobs were very poorly paid, even for that time e.g. in 1901, ‘Working Foreman, pay 30/‑ per week, wanted for Council,’  who also, at that time, wanted a Caretaker to clean their premises for 3/‑ per week!

 In 1911, ‘boy wanted for bottling store — apply: Castleman at Waterloo House. Wages 10/‑ per week.’— Perhaps that was good for a boy?

          Working in a shop was a vastly different experience to that of today. The shops were open for many more hours and assistants had to work from 8.00a.m. until 9.00p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; on Thursdays they had a ‘half‑day’ and only worked from 8.00a.m. until 3.30p.m., and this had only been  granted, after a Council meeting had first brought up the subject in 1905; 8.00a.m. to 11‑12 midnight on Fridays and even later on Saturdays! That amounted to 77 hours a week!

           A letter to the Local Paper in 1909, stated that as businesses were ‘poorly patronised’ after 7p.m. early in the week and after 9p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, the hours should be reduced. The writer went on to say that ‘were it not for the sake of respectability etc., the poor shop‑assistants would also be obliged to work all day Sunday, as well! Swansea has adopted the Shop Hours Act, why can't Mumbles? Tinplaters, Steel Smelters and Miners would not tolerate such conditions!’

          Eventually, in May 1912, Mumbles assistants were granted a ‘proper’ half‑day, when it was announced, ‘the shops must close by 1.00p.m. on Thursdays, to conform with the Shops Hours Act.’

          There were no refrigerators necessitating shopping several times a week for vegetables, bread, meat, cheese and fish. These would then be kept in a cold larder on a 'cold slab'.

          The working day for many was, as we have seen, long and often hard, but life was seemingly lived at a more leisurely pace, but changes to the way of life meant that along with the gradual passing of the multitude of small businesses went the sights, sounds and smells of those Edwardian years. The aroma of the grocers' hand-carved bacon, cheese and ground coffee beans, the odour of the ironmongers' washing soda, paraffin oil and the clank of buckets and tin baths, the whiff of the saw-dust strewn butcher's shops and the call of the milkman as he measured milk into your own jug at your door sometimes twice a day..

Acknowledgments

My grateful thanks to some of our past villagers, Llewelyn George Phillips, born 1910 above Leaker's dairy in Newton Road, Mrs. Jane Milsom, daughter of Sidney Brick, the ironmonger of Newton Road and Archie Webborn, son of James Webborn, owner of Bracelet Bay tea-rooms, for their memories of their Edwardian childhoods in Mumbles.

1908 Guide to Mumbles

Mumbles Weekly Press and Gower News, 1903-7

Mumbles Weekly Press, 1908-10

Mumbles Press, 1911-14