Trades and shops

THE NATURE OF a town in past times can be identified through the occupations pursued by those who worked in it but these changed with the years. A good example is the transition of the blacksmith to motor mechanic because the forge where horses were shod often transformed into a garage to repair motor cars as they became popular during the early part of the 20th century.

Bourne has had a busy commercial life since medieval times when craftsmen and farmers brought their goods for sale into town every week. They gathered around the market place and in the shambles or early shops around the Town Hall but soon their occasional sales developed into a steady way of life and as permanent premises were needed, they moved into town.

Many of our town centre shops today are converted cottages or houses which can be easily identified on close inspection but the trades in which its people were involved in centuries past bear little resemblance to those we find today. This being an agricultural area, leather dealers were prominent during the 16th century when the raising of cattle provided the hides used by cobblers, saddlers and harness makers.

There were also bakers who baked the bread, carpenters who made furniture, drapers and milliners who made and sold clothes, butchers and fishmongers to provide meat and fish and even a candle maker because these were the days before homes were lit by gas and electricity.

Trades and crafts associated with rural life are amply illustrated in the records of the 18th century. Many people now lived and worked in the town where there were millers to grind the corn and weavers who produced cloth, and as carts and wagons were used for transport, wheelwrights were needed to make the wheels while the building of new cottages was done by thatchers, slaters, stonemasons, plumbers and glaziers, and the fires to keep them warm required fuel provided by a woodman.

The people were becoming more prosperous by the early 19th century and could pay more attention to their appearance, especially for their Sunday best clothes. As a result, many shops were devoted to their sartorial requirements and during this period Bourne had ten tailors for men, ten dressmakers for the ladies and fifteen boot and shoe makers. Straw hats or boaters were also becoming a popular fashion accessory and there were several craftsmen in the town who made them.

Butcher's shop in West Street in 1885

There were also eleven grocers to provide food, seven butchers for the supply of meat, three surgeons or doctors to treat the people in times of sickness, four watch and clock makers and even a professor of music to teach children singing and to play instruments such as the piano and violin.

Victorian England was a place of ingenuity and enterprise and small trades and businesses flourished with Bourne providing a wide variety of goods and services at a time when transport was often inadequate and mass production only just emerging. In addition, there were a variety of other occupations and crafts that have now largely died out including a brazier and tinman and the makers of bricks and tiles, ropes and sacking, tobacco pipes, leather breeches, straw bonnets, baskets and barrels, the latter known as coopers. Also listed was an animal preserver who worked from a shop in West Street stuffing animals, birds and fish for display in glass cases, a popular feature of Victorian homes.

New inventions and the demand for a wider range of goods and services during the 19th century enabled some local tradesmen to offer a variety of wares such as John Morris who had a business in West Street. The premises were mainly a printing works but there was also a showroom at the rear for the sale of pianos, organs, and harmoniums and he also advertised himself as a bookseller, bookbinder and stationer, newsagent, music seller and circulating library, paper hanger, patent medicine vendor, distributor of stamps and sewing machines as well as being a shipping agent who could book cruises, so making him the town’s fist ever travel agent.

Unusual occupations were still evident and in 1885, William Redshaw of North Street, whose main livelihood was as a photographer, is also listed as a manufacturer of rustic furniture and the provider of accessories for halls, libraries, drawing and dining rooms, offices, lawns and gardens.

The early 20th century, with its rising population and increased commerce, began to take on a form we recognise today and included such trades and professions as solicitors, grocers, hairdressers, coal merchants, painters, dentists, shoe repairers, ladies and gentlemen’s outfitters, butchers, bakers and fishmongers while there was also an emerging industry in the sale and servicing of motor cycles and automobiles.

The West Street hardware shop in 1920

One shop in particular has survived the changing trends and that is on the corner of South Street and West Street, owned by Harrison & Dunn since 1945 but selling hardware by them and previous owners for more than 160 years, and it remains a place where you can buy many things for the house from a drawing pin to an ironing board. There is a characteristic air in the shop reminiscent from past times, a whiff of screws and nails, while the service is always a personal one, a reminder of what shopping was once like and still existing on a weekly turnover of small transactions that provide those necessities you cannot obtain from the modern superstores which are eroding the trade at so many of the smaller outlets.

Today, the variety of shops has declined and those we have are continually under threat from increasing taxes, rents and other overheads and the town centre is frequently blighted by vacant premises as a result. The modern trend is for out of town superstores and although convenient for most people, this has made the problem worse because they are invariably built by national companies who can undercut the local competition which is then forced out of business with the result that the market town of yesteryear suffers accordingly and may soon become a thing of the past.

Sainsburys supermarket in Exeter Street