At The Fruit & Wool Exchange, 1937
Now that the historic Fruit & Wool Exchange in Spitalfields is reconstituted as a facaded corporate headquarters, readers may find it salient to study these excerpts from a brochure to promote the Exchange produced in 1937.
You, as a fruit grower, are interested in three things. Growing your fruit. Shipping your fruit. And marketing your fruit. Of these three essentials, the first is entirely your own responsibility, the second is partially under your guidance, and the third?
You may ask “Why is the London Fruit Exchange the best place to auction your fruit?” We answer the question in two ways. Firstly, we say, “Because the Exchange is the finest example in the world of a specialised fruit distribution centre.” Secondly, we point to the high reputation of the six Brokers who constitute the Exchange – John & James Adam & Co Ltd, Connolly Shaw Ltd, Goodwin Simons (London) Ltd, J.C. Houghton & Co (London) Ltd, Keeling & White Ltd, and Knill & Grant Ltd. One was flourishing back in 1740 and all have unblemished histories of financial soundness and high integrity. And these qualities, being so old are all the more jealously guarded.
Here you may be sure of a price that is as high as the market will stand. You may be sure that your fruit will be sold quickly while it is worth the most money. So sure may you be of these things, that, though many thousands of miles may separate you from your ships in the London Docks, you can always be certain that not a penny of your money is being thrown away by carelessness or delay.
It is often easier to understand the workings of a business if one knows how and why it was started – and so we will begin our story of the present Fruit Exchange by telling briefly where its roots lie, and how it grew to its present importance.
A century ago, there flourished in London four well-known Auction Fruit Brokers. To the fruit trade they were known as “The City Brokers.” With their headquarters at the City Sale Room, they handled a large proportion of London’s fruit business throughout the great industrial expansion of nineteenth century England. But with the twentieth century came greater and greater consumption of fruit, and in addition, London became a centre of fruit distribution for the Continent as well as the United Kingdom.
By 1929, the four Brokers of the City Sale Rooms made a great decision. They decided that by intelligent co-operation, it was in their power, and in the interests of the fruit trade, to form a central exchange for buyers and sellers. And so, in conjunction with the Central Markets Committee of the Corporation of London, these six firms organised and caused to be built the London Fruit Exchange. The first auction took place here in September 1929.
As an example of a specialised fruit distribution centre, the London Fruit Exchange is the finest in the world – in its one building are complete services for warehousing, sampling, buying and distribution, besides social amenities for the buyers who congregate there. Sales by auction are held here on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Every sale day of the week, an average of 40,000 and 50,000 packages are offered for sale. On some occasions as many as 100,000 have been catalogued for sale on one day.
On the ground floor of the Exchange are spacious showrooms, in which can be exhibited 2,500 sample packages at one time. Here from 8am onwards, the buyers and the auctioneers examine and value the goods before the sales start. The Showrooms are connected with the Sales Rooms by electric indicators, which show at a glance which broker is selling at the moment and in which Sales Room. Immediately adjacent to the Sales Rooms are numerous telephone cabinets connected to a telephone operator. From these, buyers may swiftly communicate with their principals in Great Britain and the Continent to discuss the state of the market.
The sales take place from 10:30am in two inter-communicating auction rooms, providing seating for 1,000 buyers. These are fitted with every modern device for making business quick and easy. In each room, the Auctioneers speak into microphones connected to loudspeakers, which bring them into instant touch with every part of the room in which they are selling.
The important railways of Great Britain have offices within the Exchange itself, conveniently situated for the immediate use of buyers, and telewriters are installed in the Brokers’ offices which instantly link up with the principal ports of the United Kingdom, giving the latest market information up to the last second before the fruit is sold.
By these facilities, and by comfortable seating and central heating, the work of selling goes on smoothly and quickly. The seller has displayed his goods to his best advantage. The buyer is at his ease, and knows that he is dealing with honest men. Is it any wonder that prices at the London Fruit Exchange are uniformly good?
On the ground floor and basement of the Exchange, is warehouse accommodation capable of holding 200,000 packages. The basement is fed by electrical conveyors, gravity rollers and chutes, from the loading bays at ground floor level. There are fourteen loading bays, each wide enough to take two vehicles per bay. Twenty-eight vehicles can thus be loaded or unloaded simultaneously. Special traffic men are employed to regulate the vehicles, so that immediately a vehicle is loaded or unloaded, it is called out and another takes its place.
To do this work, a permanent warehouse staff is employed. During the busy season, it is necessary to employ additional labour, ranging from thirty to a hundred porters daily. At such times, the warehouse opens at 6am, and the business of loading and unloading, piling and sorting, continues smoothly and quickly until 10pm. At times, over 25,000 packages have been received and 25,000 packages despatched in one day. Taking the average weight of a package at 84lbs, this gives a total tonnage handled, piled and sorted in one day of 2,000 tons. All this work is done in a cool, even temperature, maintained on even the hottest days of summer by batteries of electric fans.
We say to you, the grower, and therefore the prime mover in this great industry, “We believe that you could choose no better way to consistently high prices and fair, reputable dealing, than of consigning more and more of your fruit to the handling of the London Fruit Exchange – the finest fruit auction centre in the world.”
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Irene Stride In Spitalfields
Irene Stride
Irene Stride and her husband, Rev Eddy Stride, expected to be missionaries in Africa – but fate intervened. “At that time, all the Christian missionaries were being thrown out of China by the Communists and they were going to Africa, so the Missionary Society told us to ‘Seek home ministry!’ and we ended up in Spitalfields instead,” Irene recalled fondly and without regret, when I visited her in her home on the Isle of Dogs.
“It was a very poor area and people said to us, ‘What are you doing taking children to a place like that?’ because it was grim, but my husband said he couldn’t live with himself if we didn’t take what was offered,” she admitted to me, “We felt there was a need in those days. We went there in 1970 and stayed until 1989, when we retired.”
In spite of their reservations, Irene and her family quickly found themselves at home in Spitalfields. “After a few weeks, my family really loved it there, because they found they could go cycling everywhere, around the City and up to the West End,” Irene told me, growing enthusiastic in recollection.“When we came, the Jewish people and the Cockneys were moving out and the Bengalis were moving in,” she added, “now the Bengalis are moving out and people from the West End are moving in.”
“The church was shut up and was dangerous inside, so we used the hall in Hanbury St for services and the crypt was a shelter for alcoholics,” Irene explained, outlining the challenges she and her husband faced, “Dennis Downham was there before us, he had cleared out the crypt and put in a dormitory and a day room. It was run by a warden and men came into the crypt if he thought they had a chance of getting off alcoholism and some did, and some didn’t. My boys used to play snooker with the men, but they got upset when they saw them next day lying passed out in the street. The men used to come and knock on the Rectory door if they thought I would give them something – a cup of tea or a sandwich – so we did get to know them quite well.”
Spitalfields became the location that defined her husband’s ministry and, even today, it is the place for which Irene holds the strongest connection. “When I was twenty-three, Eddy and I were planning to be missionaries in Algeria, because Eddy had been there for three years during the war and he felt that he should go back as a missionary,” she confided to me, “So I went to the Mount Herman Missionary Training College in Ealing while he studied Theology in Bristol. His sister was one of my best friends and I knew him before he went to Africa. Then, while he was an engineer in Algeria, his sister kept talking about him. When Eddy came home, we clicked and it went from there.”
“After college in Bristol, we went to Christ Church, West Croydon, from there we moved to West Thurrock, South Purfleet and to St Mary’s Dagenham, and we were there for eight and a half years. That was where Eddy got his instruction to go to Spitalfields and off we went. I’m very glad I went there and my two boys met wonderful wives there. It was a very interesting place with all these characters and some real gems. My son Derek thinks it is the centre of the world for him!”
“Afterwards, we retired to Lincolnshire where we had friends and the family came for weekends but, once Eddy went to be with the Lord, I thought I had better move to be with the family, so I came back to London. I came here to the Isle of Dogs and I’m very happy here. I’ve got Stephen round the corner and Derek in Spitalfields, he takes me to Rainham Marshes and we go birdwatching every Monday.”
Irene Stride outside the Rectory, 2 Fournier St, summer 1975
The Stride family in the Rectory garden
Eddy Stride outside Christ Church, Spitalfields
Collecting the children at the school gates, Christ Church School, Brick Lane
From the Christ Church Crypt brochure of 1972 – “Outside a man is faced with vast impersonal hostels, sleeping rough, or seeking the shelter of the crypt”
Sandys Row, 1972
Brick Lane, 1972
Davenant House, the ‘new’ Spitalfields, 1972
The crypt passageway
A corner of the crypt
The sleeping area
Relaxing in the crypt, the snooker table
The crypt – sitting area
The crypt – kitchen
The crypt – dining room
The crypt – staff room
A resident of the crypt
Irene’s Daily Mirror cutting tells the story of a family who took refuge in the crypt during World War II
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A View of Christ Church, Spitalfields
The Secrets of Christ Church, Spitalfields
Geoff Perrior’s Spitalfields
Geoff Perrior
This small cache of Geoff Perrior’s photographs of Spitalfields taken in the nineteen-seventies was deposited at the Bishopsgate Institute Library by his widow Betty Perrior. Fascinated to learn more of the man behind these pictures, I spoke with Betty in Brentwood where she and Geoff lived happily for forty-two years.
“He was a character,” she recalled fondly, “he belonged to eight different societies and he was a member of the Brentwood Photography Club for fifty-three years, becoming Secretary and then President.”
“He started off with a little Voightlander camera when he was a youngster, but he graduated to a Canon and eventually a Nikon. He said to me, ‘I can afford the body of the Canon and I’ll buy a lens and pay for it over a year.’ Then he sold it and bought a Nikon. He only switched to digital reluctantly because he thought it was rubbish, yet he came round to it in the end. For twenty years, we did all our own developing in black and white.
Geoff & I met at WH Smith. I had worked at WH Smith in Salisbury for twelve years before I went on a staff training course at Hambleden House in Kensington and Geoff was there. We just clicked. That was in July, we were engaged in October and married a year later. I was forty-four and we were both devoted, my only regret is that we had just forty-two years together.
Geoff worked for WH Smith for thirty-seven years and for thirty years he was Newspaper Manager at Liverpool St Station, but he never took photographs in the station because it was private property. He used to do the photography after he had done the early shift. He got up at three-thirty in the morning to go to work and he finished at midday. Then he went down to Spitalfields. One of the chaps by the bonfire called out to him, ‘I love this life!’ and, one day, Geoffrey was about to take out ten pounds from his wallet and give it to one of them, when the vicar came by and said, ‘Don’t do that, they’ll only spend it on meths – buy him a dozen buns instead.’
Geoff had a rapport with anybody and everybody, and more than two hundred people turned up to his funeral. I have given most of Geoff’s pictures away to charity shops and they always sell really quickly, I have just kept a selection of favourites for myself – to remind me of him.”
Geoff Perrior
Sitting by the bonfire in Brushfield St
“Got a light, Tosh?”
In Brushfield St
In Toynbee St
Spitalfields Market porter
In Brushfield St
In Petticoat Lane
In Brushfield St
In Toynbee St
In Brushfield St
In Brushfield St
Spitalfields market porter in Crispin St
In Brune St
In Brushfield St
In Brushfield St
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Dennis Anthony’s Petticoat Lane
At Paul Gardner’s Party
Gardners Market Sundriesmen is moving to 78 Ruckholt Rd, Leyton, E10 5NP. Phone 0208 558 1289
“I am sure everyone here tonight will remember this little shop for years to come”
Twelfth Night is a traditional occasion for a party and in Spitalfields we celebrated it at Gardners Market Sundriesmen which moved to Leyton this week after one hundred and fifty years in Commercial St. It is not uncommon for parties to be held when shops open but few shopkeepers enjoy such a party when their shop closes. The volunteers who helped Paul Gardner pack up his shop on Friday returned on Monday night to join with his many friends and loyal customers in showing their appreciation.
Paul climbed onto a wooden crate, proudly wearing his paper hat and Metallica jacket, to make a speech to the assembled throng of well-wishers and old friends who crammed the shop that night.
“When I first came here in 1973, I wore a suit for two days and then I thought to myself ‘I don’t really like this very much,’ but it’s always been so interesting and brilliant being here because I get such a wide range of people in. Half the time, I don’t know if I am Basil Fawlty or Manuel…
It’s so inspiring to be here because I meet so many nice people. You get the odd one, but 99% of the people who come in to my shop are pleasant. They have all been enthusiastic, wanting me to carry on and I hope I have given them some inspiration too. If you have your own small business, it is very hard to survive.
I am a simpleton really yet I have managed to survive through hard work, so far. I am sure everyone here tonight will remember this little shop for years to come and hopefully I will see you all in the future. It’s absolutely great all of you coming here to see me off, but you ain’t seen the end of me yet. I’m not on the highway to hell!
I’d like to thank all the people who have helped me over the years, especially Krissie, Leila … the East End Trades Guild has been an inspiration to me and its getting bigger and stronger all the time … the Gentle Author has done some mind-blowing stories about my shop … and to Jane, my lovely wife, who has stuck by me through thick and thin, working seven days a week clearing everything out.
Cheers then, thanks very much and goodbye!”
At the conclusion of Paul’s speech the crowd sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,’ and so say all of us.
Jane Gardner welcomes guests to the party
Paul embraces his fans
Lucinda Douglas Menzies arrives in a magnificent hat
Paul with his son Robert
Paul and the curator of the Operating Theatre Museum
Fiona, the Spitalfields dog walker, and friend
Jane Gardner with Stanley Rondeau, the Huguenot
Paul Gardner with ‘Pickles’ a market stalwart
Paul and Samson Soboye
Paul’s breaks into an improvised song with harmonica accompaniment
‘I am a simpleton really yet I have managed to survive through hard work, so far’
Paul holds up his card made by Jill Wilson incorporating Eleanor Crow’s painting
Jane and Paul Gardner
The Paul Gardner doll in the pocket of Paul’s overcoat
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
You may like to read my other stories about Gardners Market Sundriesmen
At Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
Packing Up Gardners Market Sundriesmen
Paul Gardner Goes To Downing St
Paul Gardner Returns to Downing St
Joan Rose at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
James Brown at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
The Dioramas Of Petticoat Lane
As soon as the landlord of The Bell in Petticoat Lane wrote to say he had discovered some neglected old models of Spitalfields in the cellar, I hurried over to take a look. Once upon a time, these beautiful dioramas enjoyed pride of place in the barroom but by then they had been consigned to oblivion.
Although hefty and dusty and in need of a little repair, nevertheless they were skilfully made and full of intriguing detail, and deserved to be seen. Thanks to the enlightened curatorial policy of Archivist Stefan Dickers, today they enjoy a permanent home in the reading room at the Bishopsgate Institute where they can visited during opening hours.
I am always curious to learn more of this southerly corner of Spitalfields closest to the City that gives up its history less readily than some other parts, but where the market dates from the twelfth century – much older than that on the northern side of the parish which was not granted its charter until the seventeenth century. The Bell, topped off by a grotesque brick relief of a bell with a human face and adorned with panels of six thousand bottle tops by Robson Cezar, King of the Bottletops, has always fascinated me. Once the only pub in Petticoat Lane, it can be dated back to 1842 and may be much earlier since a Black Bell Alley stood upon this site in the eighteenth century.
I first saw the dioramas in the cellar of The Bell, when the landlord dragged them out for me to examine, one by one, starting with the largest. There are four – three square boxes and one long box, depicting Petticoat Lane Market and The Bell around a hundred years ago. In the market diorama, stalls line up along Middlesex St selling books and rolls of cloth and provisions, while a priest and a policemen lecture a group of children outside the pub. In total, more than thirty individually modelled and painted clay figures are strategically arranged to convey the human drama of the market. By contrast, the square boxes are less panoramic in ambition, one portrays the barroom of The Bell, one the cellar of The Bell and another shows a drayman with his wagon outside the Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, with a steam train crossing the railway bridge in the background.
A discreet plate on each diorama reveals the maker as Howard Kerslake’s model studio of Southend, a professional model maker’s pedigree that explains the sophisticated false perspectives and clever details such as the elaborate lamp outside The Bell – and the stuffed fish, the jar of pickled onions and the lettered mirror in the barroom – and the easy accomplishment of ambitious subjects such as the drayman’s cart with two horses in Brick Lane.
Nowadays, the dioramas have been dusted down and cleaned up and I recommend a visit to examine them for yourself.
Click on this picture to enlarge the diorama of Petticoat Lane
At the Truman Brewery Brick Lane, looking north
The barroom of The Bell
The cellar of The Bell
The Bell in the 1930s
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Dennis Anthony’s Photographs of Petticoat Lane
Laurie Allen of Petticoat Lane
The CR Ashbee Lecture 2020
For the East End Preservation Society’s CR Ashbee Lecture 2020, Oliver Wainwright, Architecture Critic of The Guardian, introduces Architect Peter Barber. The lecture is at 7pm on Thursday 23rd January at The Wash Houses, The Cass, London Metropolitan University, 25 Old Castle St, E1 7NT.
PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT IS FULLY BOOKED
Perhaps the most burning question in the capital now is how to provide enough good quality genuinely affordable housing? Peter Barber is an architect who is celebrated for designing humane high density council housing.
“One of the most original architects working today. Over the past decade he has built a reputation for his ingenious reinventions of traditional house types and his ability to craft characterful chunks of city out of unpromising sites.” – Oliver Wainwright
Peter Barber has entitled his lecture HUNDRED MILE CITY & OTHER STORIES. He will be discussing the ideas which underpin his work and showing images of built and theoretical projects for Donnybrook Quarter and Hundred Mile City. Peter is responsible for some of the best new social housing in Newham, Hackney and Tower Hamlets.
Each year, the East End Preservation Society presents the CR Ashbee Memorial Lecture. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Oliver Wainwright on the Seven Dark Arts of Developers, the second lecture was given by Rowan Moore on The Future of London, in the third lecture, Maria Brenton, Rachel Bagenal and Kareem Dayes spoke about Hope in the Housing Crisis, and in the fourth lecture The Gentle Author explored the activities of CR Ashbee in the East End.
This event is presented with the gracious support of The Cass, London Metropolitan University.
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE YOUR FREE TICKETS
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Packing Up Gardners Market Sundriesmen
All are welcome at a party to celebrate Paul Gardner and one hundred and fifty years of Gardners Market Sundriesmen – his family business through four generations – at his old shop at 149 Commercial St this Monday 6th January from 6:00pm – 9:00pm.
Gardners Market Sundriesmen is moving to 78 Ruckholt Rd, Leyton, E10 5NP. Phone 0208 558 1289
After 150 years, Paul closes up in Spitalfields for the last time
Each day since Christmas, Paul Gardner, his wife Jane, and their sons have been clearing up the shop opened by Paul’s great-grandfather James in 1870 as the first tenant of the newly-constructed Peabody Building in Commercial St. By seven o’ clock on Friday night, three van loads of paper bags had already gone to the new shop in Leyton, and the family were exhausted, when the gang of volunteers arrived to assist with packing up.
Although depleted of stock, the shop looked pretty much as it had always done, yet an hour later it was almost empty. Without waiting for instructions, the well-wishers set to work stowing all the contents into boxes and stacking everything outside on the pavement before forming a human chain and passing the boxes into the van. Paul and his wife Jane stood in weary amazement at the centre of the whirlwind as the counter was disassembled and the cellar was emptied.
In between carrying boxes, Contributing Photographer Sarah Ainslie managed to take enough photos to record the historic event. No-one complained about the dust of ages that was stirred up, coating Paul Gardner with a cobwebby layer which gave him the appearance of the old retainer who had been there for one hundred and fifty years, and rendering his face as grimy as a chimney sweep.
Once the van was full, Jane set off with the driver to supervise the unloading at the new shop in Leyton. In the meantime, we set to work on the final clear out. All kinds of old signs and mementos of past times were discovered, including Paul’s father’s receipt books dated up until the month in 1968 when he died. As the team of volunteers lifted the shop counter out onto the pavement, bank notes fluttered down Commercial St to the delight of passersby.
By then, the shop looked like an empty theatre after the scenery had been removed. Paul lay down on the floor to make one last phone call to his wife on the spot where he had stood behind the counter for the past forty-seven years. Before long, the van returned and we loaded the counter and the remaining scales, trolleys and other paraphernalia.
By now, Paul was so tired he could hardly stand up but he sent me down the road to the off licence for some beers and we drank a toast together. Then he locked up his shop for the last time and this was how one hundred and fifty years ended in Spitalfields.
Photographs copyright © Sarah Ainslie
You may like to read my other stories about Gardners Market Sundriesmen
At Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
Paul Gardner Goes To Downing St
Paul Gardner Returns to Downing St
Joan Rose at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
James Brown at Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen
