Annie Bown’s
Shop Book Last updated 15th Sept 2014
James and Annie Bown
kept a shop, built onto the side of the
family house at
have fond memories of this old shop.
This is the only
surviving picture which shows the shop, brick
built,
attached to one end of the old house. Sadly,
neither
of these is still standing, having
been demolished in the
late 60’s and replaced with three modern
bungalows.
What did survive however, was
the old cashbook
that Mrs Bown
used in the shop………..
This very large old cash book, which is two and a half inches thick with 377
numbered double pages, 754 pages in total, has entries starting on May 24th
1903, with a record of monies owed by various people and organisations to the
shop keeper Mrs Annie Bown. It appears that many
people & organisations were allowed to have goods ‘on account’, the account
then being settled at some later date. The practise appeared to be so
widespread that Mrs Bown had to keep an accurate
record of what was going on, and in doing so created a wonderful record of
villagers needs through some 34 years until 1937.
A 6” ruler shows
how big the book was.
Some of the
names mentioned in the book during just the period 1903-4………..
Ester James, Mrs F Bown, Mrs F Lockyer, Mrs W Crook,
Mr W Chinn, Mrs O Martin, Mrs A Sharman, Mrs Palmer, Mr F Davis, Mrs Pring, Mrs G Millard, Mrs J Crook, Mrs G Rich, Mrs H Davis,
Mrs Bond, Mrs Reed, Mr J Merriott, Mrs Hucker, Mrs G Kick, Mrs F Kift,
Mrs H Atyeo, Mrs A Bown,
Mrs G Millard, Mrs H Barnstable.
The First
entry in the Book: 1903
Page 1, the first entry on May 24th 1903
was for the Temperance Society.
They bought ‘on account’ the following:
3lbs tea at 2/- per lb 6s 0d
2 galls milk at 8d gall 1s 4d
9 lbs of lump sugar @ 2d 1s 6d
5lbs gran sugar @ 1 ¾ 9d
½ cwt coal 8d turf 1d 9d
Page 2 contains the following details
relating to Mrs O Martin’s account for June 6th
& 7th 1903…
1lb soap 2d
starch ½ d
soda ½ d
½ lb butter 4 ½ d
¼ tea 4d
1oz tobacco 3 ½ d
2lbs sugar 3 ½ d
reel cotton 1d
milk ½ d
½ lb cheese 4 ½ d
½ doz
eggs 4 ½ d
matches 1 ½ d
On Page 4 there is the following entry
relating to Mrs F Lockyer’s
account for July 2nd 1903..
3 sugar 5 ½ d
bottle lemonade
4 ½ d
1lb sugar 2d
bottle beer 4 ½ d
On Page 6 Mrs O Martin purchased a new teapot
for 1s 9d on July 28th 1903.
On Page 7 Mrs W Crook purchased a tin of pineapple
for 6d on Aug 7th 1903.
On Page 10 there are entries for both the Wesleyan Chapel and the Mission Hall for the winter months of
1903/4. They were both buying oil by the gallon at 1s 6d per gallon( for heating), coal at
1s 4d per cwt(hundredweight), turf at
1d, and 1 soap at 2d.
On Page 18 Mrs G Kick purchased the following on Feb 23th
1904……
2 sugar 4d
4 fish
3d
camphor oil 1d
½ biscuits 2d
pkt laces 2d
On Page 28, Mrs J Kick bought salmon for 7d on June 8th 1904.
On Page 30, Mrs J Davis bought bird seed for 1d on June 23rd 1904.
On Page 31, Mrs Kift bought ½ cwt of coal on June 29th 1904.
Almost midsummer yet they were
still buying coal presumably for stoves for cooking as there was no
electricity.
On Page 32 we have the first occurrence of
a mystery object or substance….trait
or terait.
On July 9th 1904 Mrs J Davis
purchased the following..
trait 1s
meal 1s
She purchased the same again
on July 16th and July 23rd. Was this some sort of chicken feed?
P97 https://dbown100.tripod.com/sbp97.jpg
P152 https://dbown100.tripod.com/sbp152.jpg
P177 https://dbown100.tripod.com/sbp177.jpg
P238 https://dbown100.tripod.com/sbp238.jpg
Agricultural labourers wages:
For comparison, according to
Mitchell (1988: British Historical
Statistics, Cambridge University Press) an agricultural labourers wages in 1905
were around 15/-(15s or 15 shillings)
By 1920 this had risen to
£2-6/-10 1/2d, and by 1930 had dropped back to £1-11/-7 1/2d, but in 1937 was
£1-12/-9d.