Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Y is for Young Pilsbury and Young

The company of Young, Pilsbury, and Young had been established in 1881 and was housed in a large Victorian shop. The business was drapery – clothes and household linens. In 1922-3 the old Victorian shop at 36-37 on High Street was pulled down and replaced with a brand new, state-of-the-art building, some of which remains today.

The two Youngs in question were probably Henry Frederick (christened Frederick Henry) who was born in Basford, Nottingham, in 1844. At the age of 16 he was an apprentice but it’s not clear to whom, nor in what trade. He is also rather elusive until he reaches the age of 45, when he is listed as a draper living at 7 Forest Road, with his mother, Ann, aged 74, and his sister Annie aged 38. Given that at this time Annie was also a draper, I assume that she is the other Young mentioned in the name of the business. By 1901, Henry Frederick was still living at 7 Forest Road, but with only a servant, except that on the night of the census return, he had a visitor, widow Sarah Towle Burton. Sarah had been born Sarah Marriott, and had married Joh Henry Burton in 1875, and had two daughters with him. In 1885 the couple were divorced, but it wasn’t until 1901 that Henry Frederick, and Sarah married, in Chesterfield. In 1911 they were living at 26 Burton Street (Holly Bank), with Florence, Sarah’s daughter. By 1920, they had moved to 83 Loughborough Road, in Nottingham, and Frederick Henry died in 1922, when they were resident on Melton Road West Bridgford. Sarah lived on until 1931.

So, the Pilsbury in question would have been Albert John Pilsbury, born in 1861 in Lichfield. By 1881, Albert was apprenticed to William Tidd, master draper at 11 Market Place, Loughborough. The following year he married Josephine Yeomans, who was also born in 1861. Albert’s father was a commercial traveller, and Josephine’s a smith. By 1891 the couple had three children, Mabel, Harry, and Hilda, and were living at 32 Toothill Road. Albert was a draper’s assistant. Another two sons were born by 1901, and the family were still living at 32 Toothill Road. Albert was now a draper and shopkeeper, employing daughter Mabel aged 18 as an assistant, son Harry, 16 was his apprentice, and lodger, Harry Parker Simmons was also an assistant. In 1905 Albert was initiated into Howe and Charnwood Lodge of the Freemasons, and in 1911 Albert and Josephine were staying at a hotel in London. In 1921 Albert and Josephine were living at 59 Forest Road, with daughter Hilda and son Arnold. Albert is a retail draper, employing staff. By 1939, Albert had retired, and he and wife Josephine and son Hugh, who worked as a clerk in the Treasurers Department in the Town Hall. Albert died in 1947: he had been living at 59 Forest Road, but died in Radmoor House. Josephine moved to 42 Colgrove Road, where she died in 1949.

An advert from around the 1950s

Many people will remember the payment system in Young, Pilsbury and Young, as it was one of those vacuum tubes which sucked the payment along a chute, sending it whooshing along to the till! I seem to think that when I came to Loughborough the shop was called Pilsbury and Towle and sold haberdashery rather than fully-made clothes – but I might have mis-remembered that! 



Anyway, part of the lovely Art Deco building can still be seen, and is now a bank cashpoint, while two-thirds of the shopfront was demolished and replaced in the 1980s (possibly) and houses the remainder of the bank that abuts the older bank building.  

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!



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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). Y is for Young Pilsbury and Young. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/y-is-for-young-pilsbury-and-young.html [Accessed 29 April 2025]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

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NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Monday, 28 April 2025

X is for eXercise Book!

Ok, so Letter X was always going to be challenging, and so I am resorting to the common practice of making an entry under the Letter E, as the Letter X actually sounds like it starts with a Letter E – if you see what I mean!!

So, an eXercise book!

Miss Winifred Ellen Sarson was born on 28th December 1900, to William and his wife Lizzie. Her birth was registered in Leicester in January 1901, and the family were living on Kirby Road, Leicester, probably at number 24. Winifred had an older sister, Gladys born in 1892, and an older brother, Kenneth born in 1899. Winifred’s father, William was a commercial traveller in the boot and shoe industry. The family continued to live at 24 Kirby Road until at least 1921, when William was working for Barsley Tomlinson Watkins in Cosby.

In 1939, Winifred and her sister Gladys were living together at 79 Westcotes Drive, a place where Winifred lived after the death of her sister Gladys on 24th July 1975, until her own death on 20th December 1986, aged 85.

So why Winifred, and why an eXercise book?



The book is a notebook issued by the Leicester Municipal Technical & Art Schools, and it was used by Winifred to record notes, designs, and progress in the area of the Elements of Design, when she was a student at the College around the beginning of the burgeoning of the Art Deco movement. In the eXercise book she describes the meaning behind designs – like an ornament being an enrichment of an object or of a service, or repeating geometric patterns. Many of the drawings she made are of classic designs, and she talks of Roman patterns, Greek patterns, Byzantine patterns, and Renaissance patterns. She also draws a number of Egyptian inspired patterns which chime perfectly well with the Art Deco movement that was about to take off.



In her notes on geometric ornaments, she describes a geometric pattern as being the most conventional of all patterns, which might consist entirely of straight lines, entirely of curved lines, or a combination of both! Triangles, squares, lozenges, diamonds, hexagons, octagons, and polygons being the main geometrical forms for patterns in ornament.

One of the final sections in the eXercise book looks at the idea of plant forms in ornamentation. After a very short introduction, Winifred writes extensively about the Egyptian lotus, papyrus, and palms.



“The Lotus & Papyrus are plants of ancient oriental civilisation; & plays an important part in the social life of the Egyptians and Assyrians. The died stalks of these water plants were used as fuel, or made into mats and other plaited articles; their roots served as food; the pith as wicks for lamps. The paper of the ancients was made of Papyrus. This explains its appearance in the ornamental art of these nations, & its special [?] in Egyptian style.”





As we have already seen in Letter E, and Letter N, these Egyptian motifs have a presence in Loughborough’s Art Deco buildings.

Winifred became an art teacher, and taught at Leicester’s Collegiate Girls’ School for 37 years, before retiring. Her sister, Gladys was also a teacher. Neither sister ever married.

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!



____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). X is for eXercise Book]. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/x-is-for-exercise-book.html  [Accessed 28 April 2025]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Saturday, 26 April 2025

W is for Waves Wheatsheaves and Weedon the Architects

I simply can’t decide between these choices for the Letter W, so let's cover them all!

So, Harry Weedon’s architectural practice was the one favoured by Oscar Deutsch to design his Odeon cinemas. Arthur J. Price was one of the architects in the practice, and it was he who designed Loughborough’s original Odeon on Baxter Gate, most recently a Beacon Bingo, and now in the process of being renovated.

The Art Deco style was rather influenced by the designs of things of travel and speed – like the Mallard train built in 1938, which broke the speed record for steam locos in the summer of that year; like Babs the racing car which broke the speed record on Pendine Sands in 1926 with J.G. Parry Thomas in the driving seat; and like the popularity of the cruise ships. Hence the building designs that almost mimicked the shape and style of the cruise liner, or included waves, or wave-like patterns in their ornamentation. Perhaps you might stand where Market Place joins High Street and look at the amusement arcade, which if you get the right angle, looks like the front of an ocean liner. Plus, its ornamentation is decidedly wavey - and the central panel almost looks like the letter W!



A similar ocean liner feel comes from the row of shops on Market Street, and they too have waves. These are above the windows at first floor level of the blocks either side of Party Pieces, although these almost look like eyelashes!



There are also some waves above the windows on the first floor of the row of buildings on the right-hand side of the former Ramada Hotel (previously the King's Head), although they do look rather more like window pelmets!


 

And my final choice for W is wheatsheaves! No, not the Jam Garden, but the architectural motifs that we can see on the former Burton Tailoring store. They are keeping well out of the way of the lions, and can be found on the outside pillars of the building, at first-floor level.


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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!



___________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). W is for Waves, Wheatsheaves, and Weedon the Architects. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/w-is-for-waves-wheatsheaves-and-weedon.html  [Accessed 26 April 2025]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

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Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne

Friday, 25 April 2025

V is for Vita Glass

Vita glass was apparently a true glass of high quartz content, which was developed in the 1920s by Francis Edward Everard Lamplough of Cambridge University. The glass, which allowed invisible ultraviolet rays to penetrate, was made in a factory in Birmingham. The belief at the time was that ultraviolet rays of sunlight were considered healthy: ironically, today we sometimes cover our windows in a plastic film which does exactly the opposite!

Other names associated with this development are Sir Leonard Erskine Hill, and Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell. Vita glass was used in London Zoo Reptile House, and is still evident there. Around 1926, all Birmingham schools had vita glass windows installed.

Locally, in Ratby, amongst the buildings on a poultry farm being auctioned in 1936, was a ‘Brooder House’ – a heated space for young chicks - of 12 feet by 8 feet, which was glazed in vita glass.

Meanwhile, a report in the Leicester Mercury of 4th February 1930, shared the council discussion about the high cost of council housing in Loughborough, when compared with that in Grantham, and somewhere, possibly near Doncaster, where there were council houses, fitted with vita glass which were rented out for as little as 3s. 3d.. Over in Loughborough, the cheapest council houses were let out at 8s. 7d. and didn’t take advantage of the new glass! Some council houses in Loughborough cost 16s. or 14s. a week to rent, but apparently the council were contributing 11d. for the houses on Derby Road, and 3d. for the houses in Shelthorpe.

One of the two companies that made vita glass was Pilkington. Now, the ‘new’ library at Loughborough University, officially opened in December 1980, is named the Pilkington Library, and I'm supposing the library was named in honour of William Henry Pilkington, Baron Pilkington (I believe known as Harry) who was Chancellor of Loughborough University from 1966-1980.



So, to end this short post, were there any houses in Loughborough that had vita glass windows, I wonder?

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I'm taking part in the A-Z April Blogging Challenge!!



_______________________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). V is for Vita Glass. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/04/v-is-for-vita-glass.html  [Accessed 25 April 2025]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne