Mr Lupton

We have heard recently of the ongoing competition between the major supermarket companies, and the inroads being made by smaller groups such as Aldi.  With grocery shops around many street corners, competition must have been similarly fierce among the small independent traders before WW2.

Regular readers of this blog will already know of the continuing search for pictures of early shop frontages in and around Fleetville and Camp, so this week it is a delight to show a photo submitted by Ian Tonkin.   It is also rather earlier in time than many, having been taken in either 1908 or 1909.  We can be this precise because Mr Lupton was only at these premises during those two years, although he traded at other addresses in Fleetville at other times.

The shop is at the corner of Hatfield Road and Glenferrie Road, which later would be S G Brown's Dairy (Hedges Dairy) and later still Express Dairy.  Today it is a glass shop.

In typical pose is, presumably, Mr William Lupton with an assistant – or perhaps a brother – and two boys.  There are also two bicycles, so they are possibly delivery boys.

The County Council had recently kerbed and paved Hatfield Road, but it would be some years before the property owners of the parallel roads would agree to make up those roads for which they were responsible.  The front of the shop is neatly paved, but not Glenferrie Road!

Ian also submitted a second photo, because he recognised the name Butler's on the van.  Butler's Garage was on the corner of Hatfield Road and Cavendish Road – houses occupy the site today.  Misfortune had fallen upon a van, which may have been an early electric vehicle, perhaps for the delivery of milk.  The location is not known, but may have been in Hatfield Road, between the Lemsford Road junction and the railway bridge.

On the main site are two more school photos, courtesy of Jean Smith, and taken at the Oakwood Drive buildings of Beaumont School.  From 1938 to 1953 the Girls' School occupied the top floor of the main building; its playground and field was on the north side of the site – now lost underneath modern classrooms and workshops.  Headmistress Miss Ellis is in one of the photos.  Now the hunt begins for the names of the many girls who appear.