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The history of shopping in Basingstoke before and after fire
Each had their own distinctive agriculture which meant that Basingstoke was the natural market centre where farmers would meet to exchange their produce and stock up goods from the shops before returning to their villages.
Basingstoke was also at the junction of five important roads, an advantage that the neighbouring towns – Odiham, Kingsclere and Overton – did not have.
Basingstoke was therefore the biggest market town for many miles around, serving a wide hinterland of smaller towns and villages.
READ MORE: Life before the fire in Winchester Street
The main shopping area centred on Market Place and the four roads that met there—London Street, Winchester Street, Church Street, and Wote Street.
According to the first Hampshire trade directory, printed in 1784, the shopkeepers in Basingstoke included seven grocers, four butchers, four woollen-drapers, four shoemakers, three bakers, three hardwaremen, two haberdashers, two watchmakers and a bookseller.
John Chambers was listed as one of the two haberdashers.
In his advertisements in the Reading Mercury, he described himself as a woollen and linen draper who also sold “pocket books, atlases, and all other types of books and almanacs, likewise millinery, perfumery, and a variety of patent medicines”. He also employed two men “constantly employed making hats”.
Some shopkeepers were also manufacturers. They made some of the goods they sold. In 1791 George Caston bought the stock in trade of Edward Micklem’s ironmonger’s shop in the Market Place.
He built a foundry behind the shop and started manufacturing agricultural implements for sale to the neighbouring farmers.
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In 1799 the “Ladies of Basingstoke, and its Neighbourhood” were advised that every branch of dress making was executed by Maria Somers at Mrs Cooper’s in Winchester Street, where there was “a constant supply of every new fashion from London and Bath”.
The same year Miss Bishop of London Street announced that she had just returned from London with “a new and elegant assortment of millinery, flowers, rich alamode for cloaks, gloves, etc”.
I don’t know much about ladies’ fashions in 1799. I can only quote from a recent article in the West Sussex Gazette, which tells us that “in Jane Austen’s time, knickers were slow to take off”.
The content of a grocer’s shop can be seen from the advertisement Samuel Toovey, placed in the Reading Mercury in 1791.
He said that he had taken over Bickham’s shop in the Market Place, and was selling “teas, groceries, confectionery, perfumery, oils, pickles, hams, tongues, cheese, butter, patent medicines, etc.”
The Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 provided a boost to the Basingstoke retail economy.
It transferred the administration of the Poor Law to the Basingstoke Poor Law Union from 39 parishes stretching from Silchester in the north to Preston Candover in the south, and from Newnham in the east to Woodmancott in the west.
The Union workhouse opened in Basing Road in 1836 and had room for about 420 inmates. It needed bulk supplies of food and other goods, much of which was provided by Basingstoke shopkeepers.
People living in the villages, who had no need to travel to Basingstoke, or who were unable to do so, could place orders with the carriers, who served most villages, the early equivalent of internet shopping.
The carriers also provided a primitive bus service for those who wanted to go shopping in Basingstoke.
The Post Office Directory of 1855 shows that, on Wednesdays, for example, there were nine different carriers serving the following places—Alton, Bramley, Kingsclere, Monk Sherborne, North Waltham, Odiham, Overton, Sherfield on Loddon and Upton Grey.
In the 1850s, two entrepreneurs came to Basingstoke and opened shops, which led to the creation of well-known chains.
Thomas Burberry set up shop in Basingstoke in 1856 by taking over John Loader’s drapery business on the North side of Winchester Street. In 1868 he started a clothing factory behind the Winchester Street shop, facing New Street and effectively had two separate businesses—retailing and manufacturing.
As far as retailing was concerned his interests went wider than the sale of drapery. He was the local agent for Epps’s Homeopathic Cocoa, the Singer Manufacturing Company, and the Y and N Patent Diagonal Seam Corset.
Burberry turned his Winchester Street shop into a departmental store, renaming it “The Emporium.”
In 1898 Burberry took over a large shop on the South side of Winchester Street.
He opened a showroom at 1 Winchester Street next to the Old Angel Cafe in 1904 for the sale of antique furniture, curios, bric-a-brac, pianos, dinner services, glassware, etc.
He also had a shop in Church Street for the sale of furniture, carpets, floor cloths and linoleum.
On 7 April 1905, the Winchester Street Emporium burnt down.
Burberry quickly purchased new stock, which he sold from his other shops. He rebuilt the Emporium, which opened for business on 29 August 1906.
In December 1913 he leased the Winchester Street Emporium to Edgar Lanham so he could concentrate on his manufacturing business.
Alfred Milward came from Henley on Thames and started his boot and shoe business in Basingstoke in 1857 by selling boots he had brought from wholesalers from a handcart.
He opened a shoe shop in Winchester Street, and by 1881 he was employing twelve men and two boys in his retail and manufacturing business.
In 1898 Milwards became a limited company and established a chain of shoe shops across the United Kingdom. Milward’s business was sold to Clark’s in 1994.
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