Grocers
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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
Originally a grocer was a merchant who bought goods, usually dry goods like tea, sugar and spices, in bulk for resale in smaller quantities. Gradually bottled and tinned goods were added to the list of goods and grocers’ shops often dealt in candles and corn as well. They frequently called themselves provision merchants.
A grocery business that had one of the longest lives in Bradford was in Silver Street and claimed a foundation in 1775. James Budgett, who was probably related to the grocery family of Kingswood and Bristol, had opened his shop in Bradford by 1791 and by 1841 had been succeeded by James Payne Budgett by 1851 and Robert Budgett Jones in 1871, by which time it had expanded to a building next door.
In 1893 the grocery was managed by Herbert Hugh Jones. His 1897 advertisement shows that, beside the grocery, he was also dealing in ceramic and even rented horses and carriages
The building was sold to Thomas Edwards, a butcher, in 1899. It again became a grocer when it was the main shop of the Bradford Co-op from 1931 to 1988.
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Another building that was occupied by grocery businesses for many years was the one that is now the Dandy Lion pub. The conversion into the pub in the 1990s uncovered the name of Thomas Smart, who was grocer, corn factor and tallow chandler there early in the 19th century.
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After a spell as John Silby’s shoe shop, it had become the grocery of Albert Nichols by 1887. His advertisement in a souvenir booklet for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 lists some of the products he offered in addition to the normal grocery, largely as a wine, beer and spirit merchant.
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The business lasted until the 1970s as Nichols & Bushell Ltd. and is remembered by many Bradfordians. It became the Shandon Steakhouse, then The Ancient Fowl bar-bistro before Wadworth’s brewery bought it.
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A paper bag from Nichols & Bushell grocery shop from the 1920s or 1930s. It says that the business was founded in 1886.
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The staff of the Nichols & Bushell grocer shop in the 1940s
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Thomas Coupland’s grocery shop was in the Shambles in the 1880s and 1890s. It moved to the range of red brick buildings nearby in Silver Street that had belonged to Ruddles’ brewery, taking over the premises of baker-grocer E.D. Williams after 1911. It later became the International Stores grocery, lasting into the 1960s.
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The bridal shop Carina Baverstock at 11 Silver Street was the shop of James Gore & Co., grocers, bakers and provision merchants in the 1890s and then numbered 31. This is an account book from the firm in which the purchases of Major Forster of Holt Manor were entered. It was then normal for goods to be paid for periodically; traditionally accounts were settled on the Quarter Days, every three months.
The shop became Silver Street Dairy, or just The Dairy. Stevens’ advertisement is from 1911. The photograph shows the right hand window at the time when it was run by Bill and Frances Taylor, the last owners before the shop turned to other uses.