W. G. Child & Sons, Wandsworth

W. G. Child & Sons, high class tailors, was established as a limited company in 1890 by William George Child. However the family had already been making bespoke suits and garments for around 120 years. W. G. Child chose to settle in Wandsworth for two reasons: the small town and surrounding area were relatively prosperous and there wasn't any other tailoring business targeting wealthier customers around. As the number of customers grew, the decision was taken after a few years to open a second shop in Clapham Junction. This branch remained in business until it was destroyed by a bomb during the Second World War. The shop in Wandsworth was also damaged but was rebuilt after the war. Nowadays the company is managed by the fifth Child generation.
The Child shop is a bit of an oddity, a reminder of the past, in a short High Street filled mostly with cheap shops and greasy-food outlets with tatty frontages.


Location: Wandsworth High Street / Picture taken on: 23/05/2008

Groceries, Wood Green

A grocery shop replaced a business by the name of Marsons in this quiet residential area. Several shops are still opened at the end of Whittington Road but the premises once occupied by the grocery shop have been converted into housing.

Groceries / Marsons
Location: Whittington Road / Picture taken on: 19/10/2010

Bakery and pastry shop, Sangerhausen

The building may have been abandoned for many years but the sign of this bakery and pastry shop is still with us today. Otto Nebel the baker never became as famous as Otto Nebel the expressionist poet, actor, painter and printmaker, and nothing about him or his business seems to be available online. I couldn't even ask locals about that bakery as I didn't see anyone around. The freezing temperatures and the thick layer of ice in the streets may explain why I was alone outside that morning.


Bäckerei
und
Conditorei
von
Otto Nebel
Note the old spelling 'Conditorei' ('pastry shop'). Many words had their 'C' replaced by a more Germanic 'K' from the mid-1920s onwards.
This sign was painted on two occasions at least. The font used for the original version looked far more elaborate as the picture below illustrates.


Location: corner of Salpetergasse and Töpfersberg, Sangerhausen, Sachsen-Anhalt / Pictures taken on: 23/12/2009

J. Graven, Ely

James Graven founded his agricultural engineering business in 1860, exporting products to India and other parts of the world. These first years may have been difficult and he was declared bankrupt by the Ely courts in July 1869. However Craven rebounced after that setback and started making steam tractors and other machines, mostly for agricultural purposes. Around this time the firm was located at 1 Annedale terrace (1875 edition of the Post Office Directory) but relocated a few years later to Broad Street (1883 edition of Kelly's Directory) where it remained, apparently, until the early 2000s. In 1912, following a meeting with Henry Ford, James Craven ventured into the motor vehicles industry. Little is known about the following years. Craven continued to sell steam machines as well as Ford tractors and Ford Anglia cars. The company's name is listed in several magazines for the farming industry but nothing of major importance seemed to have occurred until 1969. That year, the Agricultural Machinery Journal, included the following short article:

Ernest Doe & Sons Ltd, agricultural engineers and agents of Fulbourn, near Cambridge, have taken over the Ford tractor and agricultural engineering side of the business of James Graven & Sons Ltd, 17 High Street, Chatteris, Cambs, and Broad Street, Ely. The service will be continued at Ely and Fulbourn.

Since then James Graven has been specialising in retailing, in particular of locally-produced food, and runs several shops in partnership with Budgens, BP and Spar in the Ely - Cambridge area.


J. Graven
Engineer and
Agricultural Machinist
The house where this sign was painted may have been the family home of James Craven and his successors. The workshop and showrooms were located just across the street. Most of the site was demolished a few years ago but one of the showrooms survived and was converted into a dwelling.


The company's website doesn't include much information about the history of James Craven, but they have a few interesting photographs, including one on which the showroom, to the left of the church, is in its original state (third picture. On the same photograph, look for the house with two windows opposite the production site's exit: you may be able to make out the painted sign, just about...).

Location: Broad Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire / Pictures taken on: 03/07/2010

The National News and the Sunday Evening Telegram, Battersea

It is quite amazing how some ghost signs advertising products that disappeared decades ago managed to survive for so long virtually untouched. Such is the case of the one below, which encourages people to read two different Sunday papers, both of which were last published in the early 1920s.

The weekly National News was first published in 1917, the same year Sir Henry Dalziel, the Liberal MP for Kirkaldy and owner at the time of several papers including Reynold's News, launched the Sunday Evening Telegram. Although several newspapers were published on Sundays, there was until then no evening paper. Two editions of the Telegram were printed each week.
In October 1919 Sunday Publications Ltd, a syndicate headed by Horatio Bottomley, MP for South Hackney and the greatest swindler in Edwardian Britain, acquired a controlling interest in both papers. Actually the way Bottomley obtained the money to buy these two publications was unorthodox to say the least: he simply diverted some of the money sent by the public to the Victory Bond Club (the Victory Bond Club was the greatest sting ever mounted by Bottomley, a man with considerable experience in that field!). Bottomley became their editor, a position he shared with Charles Palmer, who in 1920 was elected independent MP for the Wrekin. For his work, Bottomley was paid £2000 a year plus ten per cent of annual profits. He also received 75,000 shares of Sunday Publications Ltd. Yet both papers, which were printed by Odhams Press, had a relatively small circulation and didn't make any profit. In 1921 Bottomley converted the National News into the Sunday Illustrated and ran it in competition with the Sunday Pictorial, for which he had been writing a weekly column until then. Expensive to produce, the Sunday Illustrated only lasted for a few years. As for the Sunday Evening Telegram, it disappeared in 1921.

Spend a Happy Sunday
With the
Morning
National News
Evening
Sunday Evening
Telegram
... ... of Horatio Bottomley MP
A few years ago the future of this ghost sign looked uncertain. Indeed Clear Channel UK Ltd installed a high level revolving and illuminated billboard on this wall. When Wandworth Council objected to it, the company argued it didn't need consent from the Council since this location was being used for the purpose of advertising since 1st April 1974. This was challenged and the matter was eventually settled in the High Court, where two judges ruled in favour of the Council: since the two newspapers were last published in 1921, this sign couldn't be considered as still being used for advertising purposes on 1st April 1974. Consequently the billboard was taken down.

Location: Hafer Road / Picture taken on: 07/03/2008

G. & W. E. Downing, Maltsters, Gloucester (2)

Yesterday I presented the sign painted by George and William E. Downing on the second malthouse of their Gloucester site. Further expansion took place in 1901 with the addition of malthouses 3 and 4. Like malthouse 2, they were designed by Walter B. Wood and built by the Gurney Brothers. Both malthouses were of a similar interior design, with a basement working floor, a malt room, two more working floors, and two attics. A kiln was located at the north end of each. Malthouse 4 was slightly wider though, with an extra bay supported by pillars over the canal quay.

Maltsters

G. & W. E. Downing

...s

Head Office Spon Lane Smethwick

In 1931 G. & W. E. Downing was taken over by rival maltsters Samuel Thompson & Sons, also of Smethwick. However it was decided to retain the name Downing for the Gloucester side of the business. Founded in 1805, Samuel Thompson had almagated in 1928 with Gilstrap Earp, Edward Sutcliffe, and W. J. Robson to form Associated British Maltsters (ABM), but each company retained its trading name.
In the 1950s the original malthouse was largely demolished and replaced by a concrete building and the two more recent ones were slightly modified to improve productivity. Yet the face of the industry was changing, with the introduction of new technology and the arrrival on the British market of international groups. In 1972, ABM was taken over by Australian company Dalgety that was expanding rapidly its UK interests. Once the purchase was completed, Dalgety decided to replace the name Downing by ABM. Production at the Gloucester malthouses came to an end in 1980 after Dalgety opened a brand new plant at Wallingford. The site was sold then to the West Midlands Farmers.

When Malthouses 3 and 4 were built, a bridge was erected across Merchant Street to link them to the earlier ones. In the 1970s it was painted with the ABM initials. The sign posted yesterday is on the first wall on the left. Behind the bridge is the contrete malthouse that replaced the original 1876 facilities.


For more information about G. & W. E. Downing, you can refer to the excellent article "Downing's Malthouses" published in 2008 in the Gloucestershire Society for Industrial Archaeology Journal.

Location: Merchant Road, Gloucester, Gloucestershire / Pictures taken on: 24/07/2010

G. & W. E. Downing, Maltsters, Gloucester (1)

Maltsters George and William E. Downing from Smethwick in the West Midlands opened their first malthouse in Gloucester in 1876. As their business expanded, they built a second malthouse to the north of the original building in 1895. Designed by Walter B. Wood and built by the Gurney Brothers, it consisted of three ranges. The first two included a basement with a steeping tank in which barley was soaked usually for a couple of days and a working floor where the barley was allowed to germinate and sprout, a malt room where malt was stored and bagged, two more working floors, and an attic where barley was stored. The third range, to the north included a large malt kiln and a smaller barley kiln, where germination was inhibited. Part of this building was also used to clean and repair returned malt sacks. The absence of windows on the upper floors of the third range gave Downing ample space to advertise their business.

G. & W. E. Downing Maltsters Head Office Spon Lane Smethwick Branch Malt... [Malthouses]

Smethwick * Birmingham * West Bromwich * Wednesbury * Blackheath Walsall * ...

Bristol * .a.. Tewkesbury * Gloucester * Oswestry * ... Oxford *

And London

This sign was painted twice. Originally, the names of towns and cities were written in larger letters (they are indicated by a '*'). However as G. & W. E. Downing expanded, it became necessary to list more locations, hence the smaller font. The order was also altered.

Update: the fourth line should read "Branch Maltings" (and not "Malthouses"). Thank you very much to Aztec for pointing that out. See comments below.

View of the sign was partly obscured when two more malthouses were built in 1901 between Merchant Street and Bakers Quay on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. On the picture below, it is seen from the tow path that runs on the other side of the canal.


Location: Merchant Road, Gloucester, Gloucestershire / Pictures taken on: 24/07/2010