Around 4 years ago, I posted a photo of Newman’s drapers shop on the High Street:
I’m always fascinated by the people in old photos, and the stories behind them, so I thought I’d do some digging, and see if I could find out who they were. It turned out to be surprisingly easy to track down the owner of the shop from census records, and then piece together the background story.
Frederick John Newman was born in Steyning, Sussex in 1857, the son of Richard Newman, the landlord of the Chequer Inn on the High Street, and Mary, his wife. The Chequer Inn has been in existence since the 15th Century, and by the time Frederick was 13, his father had done well enough out of it to retire.
Frederick was still a scholar then, but by 1881 he was living in Littlehampton, working for his brother, William, who was a draper by trade, and who had a shop on the High Street. His brother (14 years Frederick’s senior) had clearly made a success of himself as he had 10 employees – plus his wife, four children and a cook and a servant - living with him at his shop on the High Street.
Fast forward 10 years to 1891 and Frederick now has his own shop in Wimborne Minster’s High Street. Like his brother, he has a sizeable staff in residence with him and his young family – 11 in total. He has a young son at this time – 6 year-old Percy – who will one day work in his father’s shop.
The 1891 census tells us that Percy was born in Wimborne in 1885 – suggesting that Frederick and his wife Emma Louisa (originally from Brighton) had been in Wimborne since at least 1885.
By 1901, Frederick and family had moved out of the shop to their own house – ‘The Leaze’ at 23 Julian’s Road. The photograph outside the shop isn’t dated, but it would appear that Percy is in his late teens, suggesting it was taken in the early 1900s. Rolls of material are piled up outside, and the signage announces them as ‘silk mercer’ and ‘hosier’, and the agents of Pullars cleaners and dyers.
The family were still living in Julian’s Road in 1911, and by 1915 the business was described as a ‘drapers and undertakers’ in Kelly’s Directory:
But that’s where the trail goes cold. Documents after that date are hard to come by, and the 1922 census hasn’t been released yet.
When I was growing up in Wimborne, the building was always McIlroys, but I don't know at what stage it stopped being Frederick/Percy Newman's shop; if you do know anything, feel free to offer it below!
