Our previous blog post featured the southern end of the building in Worcester’s Friar Street now known as Greyfriars. We also teased you with the challenge to see if you could spot the umbrella shop sign, This was just a little way further along the street. Here we have said shop with its distinctive sign taking pride of place.
George Harrison’s umbrella repair shop is listed in a 1900 trade directory as being at number 11½ Friar Street. NB In this post we are using house numbering as it was at the start of the 20th century, not what it is today. This is curious on two fronts. One is the need to have half a street number. Maybe it was shoe-horned into Greyfriars splitting one of the existing four tenements? The second curiosity is that clearly number 11½ Friar Street comes after T. Frost at number 14. Yet it comes before the more northerly Friar Street properties of numbers 15 through 19.
It has been suggested that Mr Harrison might have been a superstitious man. Perhaps the shop’s natural number was unlucky number 13 and he did not like that.
Mr Harrison was not averse to moving shop either. Later trade directories have him across the street at numbers 33 and 34. There is even a newsagent called George Harrison at number 25 in 1900 which may/may not be be the same man.
Your attention is also brought to the large pair of scissors acting as a shop sign adjacent to Harrison’s umbrella sign. This could be for Robert Old’s leather cutting shop. There is no evidence of a hairdresser at that location.
Quick Quiz
The large sign over the shop the other side of the entry reads “Canadian Stores”. What could you buy from a Canadian Store that you could not get from a British store? More on this in a later post. If you have any thoughts or ideas please let us know by leaving a comment.
References
Image taken from the Changing Face of Worcester website. Historical facts gleaned from contemporary trade directories and early 20th century census records.