Living above the Shop

Re the Manchester Department. I have a letter written to my grandfather offering him a job in the said department

WILLIAM JONES February 5th 1910

Mr T Jones
Dear Sir
We have a vacancy in our Manchester department which would be more in your way than the dresses? We will give you £40.00 per annum salary, but we should be glad for an interview at an early date. When may we expect you?
Your reply will oblige
yours faithfully

Very formal (but look at the date) and the salary!

 

Absolutely fascinating and as you say 'the salary! Do I take it correctly that the offer was made in the UK (as the pound would certainly have been the currency in the antipodes in 1910; perhaps with or without an 'A' or 'NZ' prefix)? If so I would just say although now aware that it is used in both Australia & New Zealand I am really surprised to learn it was in vogue in the UK in the 1900's, and (as I think I have mentioned before) never heard my parents or grandparents use the term. Perhaps another one for the memory bank!

 

Yes the company was in Shropshire, I have some of their original promotional material from 1885. My grandfather took the position, was on the 1911 census there, as was my grandmother in the china department. I have her indenture to the company dated 1901 when she was 15 years old. They married in 1916, he was conscripted and sent to Mesopotamia, returning in 1919. I have some of his letters home from those days. A real treasure trove.

 

Do you mean at the company premises on census night?

 

yes that's right, they both lived 'in' but not at the same address. The wording on my grandmothers indenture stated that her father would provide her with necessary items(I assume clothing and pocket money) and they would employ her and teach her a trade, so I assume board and lodging was in with that as her father died in 1901 just after the indenture was signed. She was with the shop owner and his wife at the business address, another assistant from the glass and china department, a milliners apprentice and a domestic servant in 10 rooms. He was at a different address with a Drapers clerk, 3 other male drapers assistants, a female dressmaker, and 2 female drapers assistants, all aged between 28 and 51, in an 8 roomed premises. The establishment was like a department store that supplied everything from coffins to funeral wear, coal, china, furs, fabrics etc