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Gt Homer Street sweet shop

By Gwebb1 |
General Genealogy

Hi all

I have recently been given the transcribed 'memories' of Walter Hibbins, the son of James Alfred Hibbins and his wife, Elizabeth.  He was born 1897).

It makes fascinating reading as it describes Liverpool in the early 1900s as seen through a child's eyes.  Walter also describes in detail the sweet shop at 182 Gt Homer Street where he was born.   James Alfred previously ran 249a Gt Homer Street, which he subsequently gave to his married sister, Jane Peterson.

From the description given by Walter, 182 Gt Homer Street sounds quite a substantial property and may have been opposite where the Gt Homer Street Picture House was eventually built.  

I'd love to see a picture of the shop or any more information that any of you can find out about the premises (or no, 249a).  I have traced the family's movements as best I can on the censuses and Electoral Registers.

Here's hoping!

Regards,

Glen

I hope Glen won't mind me jumping in on this thread on the off-chance that some kind soul (Bert, we're looking at you) is in the proceess of dusting off some old directories. A family named Segrave whom I have been working on recently had a draper's shop at 67/69 Gt Homer Street from around 1900,  at least until the death of the owner Catherine Segrave in August 1930. There is a possibilty that the shop continued in business until 1939  and beyond as one of the owner's nieces who had previously (June 1921) been shown as shop assistant in the business, was recorded as a manageress of a draper's in the 1939 Register.  So I too would be interested in any information or pictures about properties on Great Homer Street from that time.

Page 971 of the 1900 Liverpool Directory (this is listed by name rather than address)

Hibbins

Edward E Engineer, 30 Thurnham Street, Rocky Lane, E

James, Confectioner, 67 Stanley Road N

James Jun, Confectioner, 182 Gt Homer Street

Mrs Millicent, 53 Victoria Road, Tuebrook, E

Thomas, Confectioner, 221 Netherfield Road North, N

William, Ship Cook, 129 Chirkdale Street, N

Because of the occupations and also the name James "Jun" I'm wondering if James, James Jun and Thomas are all related?

Thanks, Mary - some new information here.

James in Stanley Road was the father of James Junr and Thomas.  

James Jnr was the father of my Walter who has written the interesting 'Menories'.

Thomas was Walter's brother and was actually called John Thomas but seems to have been known by his 2nd name.  I didn't know he was in the confectionery trade too but the Netherfield Road address is his.  James Jnr and Thomas were sheet metal workers and Walter  writes that when his father got the shop, the family was quite well-off at first because he always kept his main job while running the shop too.

Walter's description of the shop is really quite interesting - he talks of his father putting up incandescent lights when other shops in Gt Homer St didn't have them and how his father 'fiddled' the gas readings so they were not too expensive to run!

Walter also mentions the Christmas Clubs run by the family and how participating customers were given a Christmas card from 'Mr and Mrs Hibben's sweet shop'.  Walter makes no. 182 sound quite a commercial concern which is why I thought I might have been able to find out moreng about it - apparently it was still there in the 1950s but obviously not run by the Hibbins family - but maybe it was more run-of-the-mill than Walter realised.

Glen

1901 Kellys

182 Hibbins James, .iun. confectioner

249A Petersou Jane confectioner

No Segrave at the addresses given.

Thanks Bert and Mary.

The result from the 1900 Directory doesn't surprise me as Catherine's husband was still alive then.  Catherine had no occupation in the 1901 census when the family was at 50 Virgil Street, which is off Gt Homer Street. Interestingly in 1901 two of her daughters were working as boot shop assistants so A & H  Johnson Ltd at 59  Gt Homer street shown in Bert's 1911 directory entry may be of interest. Catherine's husband Thomas died in Nov 1901 so if they were already renting the shop at 67 Gt Homer Street, Catherine as a widow would have had a business property qualification based on that address which allowed her to vote in local elections, and that is what the 1904/5 electoral roll refers to. Either that or they were living over the shop. By 1911 Catherine was living at 52 Carisbrooke Rd Walton so a bit further away, but now her occupation was shown as draper, tying up with that 1911 directory entry Bert found.

The 1921 census shows them living at 48 Bedford Rd Walton as per the electroral rolls, with Catherine recorded as Draper and employer with her place of business being 67/69 Great Homer Street along with 3 of her daughters as drapers (employees) working at the same address. Interestingly Catherine was illiterate so it looks like one of her daughters filled in the census for her. It was Catherine's grand daughter (not niece as I said earlier) Mary Segrave who was shown as a manageress in a drapery stores in the 1939 register. At the time of the 1921 census Mary Segrave was living at 17 Breeze Hill (with her mother and father) and shown as working in her grandmother's drapery store. The address given was just 67 Great Homer Street.

I'm not sure of the significance of something in Mary's will (she died in 1979). She left her share  "derived from the estate of my late father in the family business together with the property in which the said business is carried on at 413 Stanley Road Bootle .. ," to her sister. Her will was written in January 1950 and not updated.  Her father James was Catherine's first son, but from all the documentary evidence I have about him he was a tanner, and by 1921 was the works manager of J Shakeley and Co who were located at the Bevington Bush Tannery. James died in 1937 and his will makes no mention of the family business. So my thought is maybe he had shares in his mother's drapery business. Having said that the close connection between tanning and bootmaking may also be significant. Any idea what business was at 413 Stanley Road in the 1930/40s? I haven't been able to find any electoral rolls for that address. The 1939R just shows a blank entry for 413. The 1921 census is confusing as it shows two separate 413s - one for Stanley Rd Bootle and another for Stanley Rd Kirkdale. That suggests there may have been two numbering systems on the same road.

 

 

Thanks, Bert.  Do you know what year this ad was placed?

I think the Hibbins' may have moved in about 1890 and left when businesss went pear-shaped in the early 1900s.

The description does not seem to fit exactly with what Walter Hibbins rememberd of his childhood home but one of the things I am trying to do is ascertain how accurate his recollections were.  His recollection seemed to be that no. 182 was 3 storeys: shop, kitchen and parlour on the ground floor, 4 bedrooms for the family (parents and 7 boys) on the 1st floor and then another floor with 4 bedrooms where the 4 servants slept.  One of the servants was a 'cellar girl' (washing utensils they had used to make ice cream, saspirella etc), one who looked after the children, one who did housework and one who served in the shop.  Walter seemed to remember these girls quite well as a couple of them married his brothers.

Glen 

Glen,

 For what it's worth, when householders were asked in the 1911 census to say how many rooms their dwelling consisted of, the Campbell family who were the occupants of 182 at the time, said there were six rooms.

Poor old Walter seems to be a bit off the mark with his description of his childhood home.  Makes me wonder how many other things he mentioned were tinted by the rose coloured specs e.g. his memory of the incandescent lights and the fact that 182 Gt Homer St was one of the first shops in Liverpool to have a soda fountain!  Walter reckoned his dad designed it using an old sideboard.  I think I need to be careful what I write up about the Hibbins' family!

Anyone know when Gt Homer St was redeveloped?

Glen

 

According to this site (https://historic-liverpool.co.uk/interactive-maps/historic-townships/ev…) there was a certain amount of bomb damage in the Second World War but the main changes started with the widening of Gt Homer St in the 1960s, followed by the progressive demolition of the old terraced housing in the 1970s, being largely finished by 1978, although the re-building work progressed more slowly. A good place for photos is the lost tribes of Everton (and the book of the same title if you can find a cheap copy: £24 on Amazon atm):  https://losttribeofeverton.com/street/great-homer-street/ Also take a look about half way down this page: https://www.liverpoolpicturebook.com/p/l4-l5.html To be fair to Walter, a lot of the old shops do appear to be 3 storeys high.

Thanks, Andy.  I've seen the 'Lost tribes of Everton' book mentioned before so I think I might have to treat myself - I'll try giving out hints for Mother's Day first!

Looking again at the 6 rooms of 182 Gt Homer St, I reckon Walter's description could have been fairly accurate, especially taking into account the rooms that were not 'counted' on the 1911 census.  Also, although he mentions 4 bedrooms on each floor, he would only have been 10 or 11 when he left so may have counted rooms that were basically one space divided by a bit of curtain or an old sheet.  I think I need to give him the benefit of the doubt!

G.

Bert, I have just one more favour to ask. Above you kindly posted an extract from the 1911 directory which showed Catherine Segrave's millinery business at 67 Gt Homer Street. Does the same directory also show what business is at 54 Gt Homer Street? In the 1911 census Edward Joseph and Rose Ann Corkhill are living at that address. Rose Ann is one of Catherine Segrave's children. Edward Corkhill ran a newsagent's and tobacconist's so it woukld be interesting to see if his shop was at 54 Gt Homer Street, or elsewhere. In June 1921 his shop appears to be at 155 Kirkdale Road.

That's great. Thank you very much Bert. Confirms what  I suspected. I saw a photograph online somewhere the other day showing Gt Homer Street and the corner of Roscommon St, so I'll see if I can find it again and check if it shows Corkhills next to the pub on the corner.

Thanks, Bert.  Do you know what year this ad was placed?

June 3, 1893. 

There was also a few ads for girls to serve in the shop and live in.

Thanks, Bert.  1893 was probably before the Hibbins family were living in 182 but I'll check out the dates.

Moving on to 249a Gt Homer Street - another sweet shop, this time run by John Albert's sister, (Ann) Jane Paterson - the Electoral Registers have Jane at this address from 1886 to 1926 (she died in 1928).  

My query is this: on the 1891 census, Jane's husband, Nelson Peterson, is identified as head of the household and a confectioner.  He died in 1892 but it is Jane's name that appears on the Electoral Registers from 1886 onwards.

Am I right in thinking that this indicated Jane would have been the official tenant of 249a and therefore had the votong rights rather than her husband?

Walter maintained that JA set his sister up in the shop when she was widowed but I am thinking he made the arrangements and perhaps paid the rent before her husband died.  Do you think it would have been unusual that the woman had the voting rights and her husband did not at this time?

Glen

Hi Glen,

I think this article may explain what was going on: https://classroom.synonym.com/act-gave-women-right-vote-britain-5469.ht… The second half of the nineteenth century saw a whole raft of reforms to do with the franchise in general, although they mostly benefitted male voters. While the Married Women's Property Act 1882 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Married_Women%27s_Property_Act_1882) had nothing to do with voting rights, it represented a major change in the attitude towards married women who were hitherto seen as their husband's 'property'. Consequently the entitlement to own or rent property in turn led to the right to vote in local elections where the franchise was based on property ownership, or more accurately, liability to pay the local rates.  As you will see from the article above, two people were not entitled to a vote based on the same property.

It appears that Polling District 21, part of number 5, Scotland division, 1894/5 was split into male and female.

 

That was my thought. The lists used to be arranged alphabetically,  so it would make sense to also divide them into male and female, presumably to speed up the process of identifying the voter at the polling station, when people may not have known their ward, especially where the voting qualification came as a result of owning a business.

I don't think Mary's suggestion can be right because one of the qualifications to be allowed to vote was that you had paid your parish or borough rate up to date. Income tax as we know it didn't really affect most working class people. After the Income Tax Act of 1842 you had to have an annual income of £150 to qualify for income tax. In 1860 the average wage for an unskilled worker was around 2 shillings a day, so a typical annual salary might be about £55 bearing in mind people were only paid for the days they worked. Even by the 1930s a middle ranking civil servant (say the equivalent of a  higher executive officer today) would have been on a scale between £460-680 pa depending on length of service. 

I don't think Mary's suggestion can be right

No I quite agree, especially after Bert's explanation.  I just threw it in there as a thought. 

Keep throwing your thoughts into the arena, folks!

Thanks for everyone's comments so far - really useful.  I now have another query about Electoral Registers but it does relate to the sweet shop premises so I will keep going on this thread rather than link it to my other message re: Electoral Registers.

I have found some Registers (e.g. 1886/87) where both James Alfred and his sister, (Ann) Jane Peterson, are given the address of 249a Gt Homer St - I know the 2 families could have been living together as neither had more than one child at this time, but would the same address have given the vote to 2 people?

Also, there are couple of years were the Registers record 2 addresses for John Alfred e.g. one of the 1889-90 Registers records him at 8 Norgate Street and the other Register gives his address as 249a Gt Homer St and the 1890-91 Registers do exactly the same thing.  I understand now how 2 different Registers were compiled some years but it seems a bit odd that he happened to be flitting between the addresses for a couple of years.

Any thoughts on the matter would be gratefully received as always.

Gen

 

Glen,

 I don't have an immediate explanation. Can you describe the layout and other details on the registers, for instance the page headings and the column headings. For that era I would expect to see columns headed Name of Elector, Abode, Nature of Qualification and Description of Qualifying Property. The Page might be headed Occupation Voters  (other than Lodgers). Also on the extreme left, before the voter's number there should be a letter corresponding to those categories I mentioned in the other thread. Anything along those lines?

Andy

Hi Andy.  I've been looking at the Registers again and I think I am going dizzy looking at the different years - the 1880s  are getting mixed up with the 1890s and there are too many James Hibbins!

Firstly, forget what I said about Jane and James both being in 249a Gt Homer Street on the 1886-87 Register - there is an entry for James but not Jane (I know she was living at no. 249a in 1886 but she does not appear on the Register until 1896, hence what I meant when I said I was getting the years mixed up!).

However, I was right when I said I had found James at 2 different addresses on Registers for the same year and that this was repeated in consecutive years implying he hadn't just moved houses between the Registers being compiled (e.g. in one Register for 1888-89, James is at  8 Norgate St but in another Register for 1888-89 he is in the house and shop at 249a Gt Homer St and this is repeated for the 1889 and 1890 Registers).

None of these Registers have any column headings.  There is the voter's no., then the person's name, then the address, then whether it is  a house or shop and then the address again.  What I did notice when I re-looked at the Registers was that one Register seemed to record just a house address while the other Register recorded a house and shop address - sometimes these would be the same (as in the case of James) and sometimes different.  For instance, in one of the Registers there is a Charles Morris who appears to have a house at 30 Luther St but also a shop at 177 Skirving St. but this entry is in just one Register and so Charles has 1 voter's no. but James appears in 2 Registers and appears to have 2 numbers!

I've got myself in a right pickle with these Registers and it is really bugging me!

Glen