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yeomans
 
 
Friday, 30th July 2010

 
Looking for a bargain
 
With all the pressure and hype we are subjected to during the approach to Christmas, many may soon be wishing they had lived more than a century ago, when Queen Victoria sat on the throne. Things in those days – especially shopping – could not possibly have been such a stressful or exaggerated experience. Wrong.
The hyped-up shopping experience was evident even before Worthing published a celebration brochure-cum-shopping catalogue to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897. Considering the relatively prudish lifestyle of many Victorians, advertisers of the period showed scant awareness of accuracy and exaggeration when selling their wares.

READING some of the words and phrases used by the shopkeepers of Worthing to sell their wares back in the 1890s, one can appreciate the need for a Trades Descriptions Act.

The 68-page souvenir brochure printed in Worthing was ostensibly a publication to “joyfully record” Queen Victoria’s 60 years on the throne and missed no opportunity to boost Worthing as “a favourite health resort during Queen Victoria’s long and illustrious reign”.

It also recorded in considerable detail Worthing’s institutions, social changes, improvements and main events of the period, including a line that may even raise a chuckle at this distance, “the town’s sanitary progress”.

This was a carefully sanitised reference – forgive the pun – to deflect memories of the horrendous drainage disaster that had caused Worthing’s fatal typhoid outbreak only four years earlier. Spin-doctoring is also not a new phenomenon.

The diamond jubilee brochure was, of course, produced in all seriousness, yet is full of unconscious humour, especially in the advertisements.

Take the one placed by the Victoria Model Dairy, of Brighton Road and 8 South Street, Worthing.

“Milk delivered to all parts of the town in our own carts,” it declares, “all dairy utensils cleansed by steam and under direct medical supervision.” One can almost visualise a milk doctor on 24-hour bottle watch.

Sussex County Stores, at 41 and 43 Montague Street, advertised an amazing variety of “departments” for a small, double-fronted shop. This store appeared to sell everything and delivery was free from a range that included grocery, provisions, poultry, meat, greengrocery and fruit, brushes, turnery, brooms, mats, leathers, sponges, toilet requisites, mineral waters, coffees roasted fresh daily and Ceylon and Indian blend tea at 1/6, 1/8 and 1/10 per pound.
So another myth is exploded – that doing all your shopping under one roof is also something new.


The Worthing Mart, Walter Bros shop in South Street, Worthing, top, was a shopping mecca for  late-Victorian residents.


Walter Brothers, with branches in South Street and Montague Street, Worthing, Tarring and Lancing, advertised “British and foreign dress goods” and “the best dress a lady can buy that is wear-resisting and has unchangeable dye”. They proudly boasted: “We hold the best selection of fancy goods in Worthing and are proprietors of the famous Worthing Serge.” Stolid Victorians must have believed Worthing Serge would be around forever, but, not long afterwards, it vanished.

Fame can be a fleeting thing in fashion…

It was no doubt reassuring for Victorians to read about Clarendon House being “a high-class boarding establishment at 19 and 20 Marine Parade, Worthing, offering smoking rooms, men servants and a sanitary certificate granted by the Corporation”.

Down among the small print, their advertisement includes an archetypal Victorian misinterpretation – “every room in the house (except four) looks on to the sea”.
Worthing’s other attractions were noted and included “well-appointed four-horse charabancs running daily to all places of interest and a good service of steamers to Brighton, Eastbourne and the Isle of Wight”.


Hat-happy Victorians on Worthing seafront in 1897.


The Bridge Pharmacy, in Railway Approach – a pleasant road that post-WW2 disappeared beneath a supremely ugly multi-storey car park redevelopment -– would not have impressed trading standards (or HM Queen!) with their advertisement.

Proprietor W. Frost knew the value of mentioning royalty in the same sentence as his product.
After imparting the wisdom that “poor drugs bring poor results and poor results bring a poor reputation”, his advertisement quoted “A Gossip” under the headline “Royalty’s Favourite Perfume”.

“There is nothing fresher or more delightful than Genuine Old English Lavender and the fact the Queen and the Princess of Wales invariably use it speaks for itself. . .”

Today, that would produce, at the very least, a sharp letter of rebuke/denial from Buckingham Palace.


Umbrella shops also did amazing business, judging by this picture of crowds celebrating Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897.


Queen Victoria visited Worthing twice, for a few minutes each time while on the way to Arundel Castle. I doubt if she paused even for a moment to sample another of Mr Frost’s bargains, “Dr Williams’ super-fatted soap which removes redness and roughness of the skin, whether caused by the sun, sea-bathing, wind or the hard water of the south coast. 

 “Sixpenny tablets, cash price fourpence-halfpenny.”

Arthur Ive, watchmaker, jeweller, goldsmith and optician, of 63 Montague Street, was offering what he claimed to be “the bargains of the century – silver watches from 15 shillings and gold watches from two pounds”. 

Outside his shop was “the only clock in Worthing driven by electricity”. And I bet you thought they were invented only a few years ago. The Tower Brewery, in Warwick Road, Worthing – the tower of the building is still there today, converted into apartments – was offering 18-gallon casks of family pale ale for 18 shillings – less than £1 in today’s money – and the jubilee brochure printed a favourable report on the drink – not from imbibers, but from Edward Moore’s analytical laboratory in Brighton. “I can comment in favourable terms on its qualities,” wrote Mr Moore for their advertisement – overlooking his vested interest, of course.


This Victorian workman in Worthing seemed to exude confidence to back his boss’s brashness.


An advertisement for the Eardley House Boarding Establishment smugly quoted even higher sources of recommendation. With naive incongruity, it stated: “Reference kindly permitted to His Grace the Archbishop of York and other friends.”

That wouldn’t happen today, but, in 1897, His Grace could not contain his enthusiasm for the Eardley’s “large drawing room, dining, billiards, recreation, children’s, maids’ and cycle rooms”.

Sturdy Victorian principles were emphasised by the private Steyne High School, facing Steyne Gardens. “Special attention given to delicate children,” said the opening line of their advertisement, in strange contrast with the following line, which ominously added: “The boarders have daily cold baths.”

Worthing’s Victorian businessmen offered combinations of services unknown today. Patching and Co combined estate agency and auctioneering with running a linoleum and carpet warehouse, undertakers and monumental masons.

Frank Dutch, in his shop at the corner of Montague Street and Montague Place, was a game and poultry dealer – and also sole Worth-ing agent for Ridegways teas and coffees.

The seafront Burling-ton Hotel is still with us today, but was already flourishing in Victorian times.  In 1897, it boasted one of Worthing’s earliest telephones, with the number Worthing 3.
Also, “incandescent light, choice wines, spirits and cigars, Bass Ales on draught and in bottle”.

BUSINESS MATTERS: The Worthing Mart, Walter Bros shop in South Street, Worthing, top, was a shopping mecca for  late-Victorian residents. Above, hat-happy Victorians on Worthing seafront in 1897. Left, umbrella shops also did amazing business, judging by this picture of crowds celebrating Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897. Above, right, this Victorian workman in Worthing seemed to exude confidence to back his boss’s brashness.
 
 

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