The Three Towns in old directories

[down south]

Thanks, Hughie and Morag; your appreciation is very welcome...but, sorry to say I really can't stretch it out any further and there's only one more post to go ( I decided it was too long to do all in one. ) Unless I go on to the 1967 telephone directory of course ! ...but I rather think we've been there, done that.

Susan

[down south]

And, here now is that final post.

By comparing other listings in the Stevenston section of the 1935 directory, we can spot most of the shops in these photos from North Ayrshire Yesterdays , which must have been taken pretty close to this date. We looked before at this row, as it used to be back in the1890s . Now here it is in the 1930s:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nayesterd ... 752963661/

I'm not sure it was before, but it's certainly part of Fullerton Place now, and on the RHS of the picture we have, from left to right, James Patrick, baker, Nos 2-4; J&D Russell, chemists, No 6; Anderson & Sons, grocers, No 8; and Mrs Mary Lindsay, fruit merchant, No 12. I see there's still a chemists shop there today.

This one meanwhile shows the top end of New Street, viewed from the Cross end:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nayesterd ... 5/sizes/o/

On the left-hand side the painter must be David McAuslan at No 4 ; beyond that is the barber's shop of John Anderson at No 8, and then comes John C Hamilton, ironmonger at No 10, before we come to the familiar Thistle and Rose. On the right-hand side, closest to us is the fish shop of James Murdoch at No 3, and then we can certainly make out Robertson's the pork butchers at No 5, and Mrs Harvey's ironmongery at No 7. The sign for a dairy will be A&G Watt at No 9; then No 11 is listed as Dickson the shoemaker, and No 13 Archibald Wallace the stationer, another Saltcoats shop branching out into Stevenston.

It's also instructive to compare these shops, and others from the directory, to the ones listed for the same locations at the link below; which comes from the " Saunter Roon Stinson " and describes what was there in the 1950s and 1960s. ( For which list , credit must of course go to John Donnelly; whose own shopkeeping relatives are also to be found in the 1935 directory list...John Donnelly, grocer, at 25 New Street, and Mary Donnelly, newsagent, at 36 Boglemart Street ). The functions of the shops, and sometimes the actual businesses, are very often identical.

http://www.threetowners.net/forum/viewt ... 640#p71640

Which only emphasises the fact, that we've reached the end of the road with these directories and come almost up to our own times, which have been amply described elsewhere. So that brings this topic finally to a close.

But before I go, just a word of appreciation for the National Library of Scotland for making all these directories ( and so many old maps too for that matter ) freely available online, whether directly or through archive.org .

Susan

[Penny Tray]

Well done Susan, another great commitment and contribution to THREETOWNERS.

[down south]

Thanks for those kind words, PT.

Now all I have to do is think up something else I can embark upon...

Susan

[MMACM20]

The streets in the town centre appear in Slater's for the first time; including the first mention of Fullarton Place. John Dickie, the baker whose shop is there ( he also has a shop in Saltcoats' Dockhead Street ) , seems to be the most prominent citizen of the town in terms of civic involvement; he's also registrar of BMD, inspector of poor, clerk of the school board, cemetery inspector and sanitary inspector, and has a sideline as stationer and insurance agent. Interesting that a similar prominence was effectively passed down in the next century along with the bakery to William Morrison , Stevenston's first provost.

Susan

*(This is incorrect: The first provost of Stevenston was James Morrison born in Glasgow. The bakery was NOT handed down to him. He did however take it over! information from my personal family history... he {James Morrison sr} was my Great Grandfather)

[sweet caroline]

http://www.livingstonechurch.org.uk/wp- ... ooklet.pdf


I see that it was a James Morrison who was first Provost of Stevenston.

Are the Morrison family in Kilwinning related to the Stevenston Morrison's ?MMACM20

Edit-https://tinyurl.com/ycj896qb


SC

[down south]

Apologies for the mistake, MMACM20; I don't know where I got the William from ! I've now corrected it.

Susan