Sandle Brothers, Manufacturing Stationers
Not so long ago, there were a multitude of long-established Manufacturing Stationers in and around the City of London. Sandle Brothers opened in one small shop in Paternoster Row on November 1st 1893, yet soon expanded and began acquiring other companies, including Dobbs, Kidd & Co, founded in 1793, until they filled the entire street with their premises – and become heroic stationers, presiding over long-lost temples of envelopes, pens and notepads which you see below, recorded in this brochure from the Bishopsgate Institute.
The Envelope Factory
Stationery Department – Couriers’ Counter
A Corner of the Notepad & Writing Pad Showroom
Gallery for Pens in the Stationers’ Sundries Department
Account Books etc in the Stationers’ Sundries Department
Japanese Department
Picture Postcard & Fancy Jewellery Department
One of the Packing Departments
Leather & Fancy Goods Department
Books & Games Department
Christmas Card, Birthday Card & Calendar Department
A Corner of the Export Department
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Mmmmmmmm…. a whole street of heroic stationery…fab!
Oh imagine how wonderful to browse the shops with their fabulous displays of stationery.Picture postcards and fancy jewellery, leather goods etc. This sounds like Aladdin’s Cave.
wonderful and so sad too. Just think of all the proud people who worked there.
Imagine a morning browsing these galleries…pure pleasure
Wow, I’d love to travel back in a time machine and visit this establishment!
Greetings from Boston,
GA, so interesting. I love that image of the Sandler Brothers as hooded monks on 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57 Paternoster Row, London.
The bygone realm of stationery…
Very interesting! I had a search for Sandle Brothers and the last dated information I could find was for 1947, when they exhibited at the British Industries Fair. They were “Manufacturers of Zipp Writing Cases and the “Charterhouse” Series of Albums, Address Books, Note Books and Diaries and the “Super” Pencil Sharpening Machine. Publishers of Children’s Toy-books. (Olympia, 1st Floor, Stand No. H.2172)” according to Grace’s Guide to Industrial History.
I wonder how long they lasted after this?
Heroic stationers! Indeed. And I would desire a heroic budget to be able to shop-till-I-dropped in this emporium of fascinations. Lordy, even the shipping crates appealed to my collector’s eye.
Thanks for taking us on the tour. My mythical shopping basket overflows.
It seems so odd that this is history, totally vanished! Having worked for a well-known East End printer in the 60s and 70s this is just the sort of place that I used to visit for specialist supplies
1793, surprising to find that public stationery purchasing went that far back.
Three cheers for the Bishopsgate Institute’s mouth watering wide variety of courses. Thriving, thriving, thriving – lang may your lum reek…
Paternoster Row was very badly bombed during the Blitz, wiping the buildings on the business card out. The Row was finally replaced by Paternoster Square in 2003.
Mmm…Stationery….(drool)
If only one could stroll around there …
Love & Peace
ACHIM
I worked for Sandle Bros from 1961 to 1970 on leaving for Australia to live. I was a commercial traveller for the company, Kent Surry and Sussex was my territory. The company had two premises at the time one in Kensington and another in Wandsworth, they had a showroom at Snow Hill in the city of London which closed in about 1966 when they made the showroom at Wandsworth.
My mother, Rosa Bird, worked in the office of Sandles around 1915. She used to tell me how she saved a halfpenny bus fare walking from Hackey to Paternoster Row! I believe she worked there for several years until she married in 1921.