Services

Shopping

Shopping in Hartshill has always centred on Hartshill Road. The streets off the main road have never contained more
than a few shops, usually a general grocery. Jones and Evans built the properties in Hartshill Road which constituted
the central shopping area of the district, following on their purchase of part of the Hoby estate in 1901. Their position
suggests that they may have been intended for commercial use from the outset but there is no indication of such use
by the date of the publication of Kelly’s Directory of 1904 and even by 1907, there were still possibly two private
houses in the parade between Coronation Road and Albany Road, in which Caroline Wade, possibly a retired grocer
and Mary Evans lived. The properties there were originally built with house fronts and the properties of Mesdames
Wade and Evans survived with their original frontages until the 1960s, being the longstanding businesses of Frederick
Beswick, boot repairer and James Richardson, watchmaker, who are both listed in the 1912 Directory.

The 1907 Potteries and Newcastle Directory listed the following (present numbers):

543 Arthur Matthews butcher – he had previously lived in Newcastle and by 1912 was at 551 on the corner of
Coronation Road where his son Charlie traded until the 1970s. In 1912 the shop was in the hands of John Henry
Thompson a grocer.

545 Amy Wilson confectioner – she originated from Rugeley but had worked in a large confectioner’s in Lord
Street Southport, before having her own business in Crosby between Liverpool and Southport. She was still there in
1912.

547 HA Gardner cycle agent – there was a Harry A Gardner living at 142 Hartshill Road in 1901, a manager of a
butcher’s shop – perhaps he fancied a change – if so he had reverted to his previous trade by 1911 by which date he
lived in Newcastle.

549 Charles David Blakeman photographic supplies and drug store – he had been a chemist’s assistant in
Newcastle.

553 Samuel Barratt tobacconist – he was also a coal dealer and other members of the family sold groceries and
newspapers as indicated in the 1911 census.

555 Caroline Wade no occupation – she may have been the Caroline Wade who was a grocer in Stoke in 1901
and later lived in King’s Avenue Wolstanton. This was occupied by James Richardson by 1912.

557 Mary Evans no occupation. Frederick Beswick was living here by 1911.

559 George Birbeck grocer – originally from Hanley – the double fronted shop.

563 Joseph Inskip china and earthenware dealer. Thomas Reeves, a brickyard fireman, lived here in 1911 and
by 1912 is listed as a greengrocer.

565 L E Corbett milliner. Frederick Walker a plumber lived here in 1911 and traded as Lawton and Walker plumber
and house decorators in 1912.

567 L Edwards draper William Hodgkins an outfitter and his wife Annie a milliner lived here in 1911, which they
called Albany House. William Wallbank a butcher was listed here in 1912 and the business was continued by his son
Peter and is still a butcher’s today.

By 1912, one or other of Jones’ partnerships had built the further seven shops between Riseley Road and Ashwell
Road, none being recorded in the 1907 Directory.

The 1912 Potteries and Newcastle Directory listed the following (present numbers):

485 Alfred Gale grocer – his premises included what is now 487 Hartshill Road. He was born in Birmingham and
married his wife Nellie in Northampton in 1908.

489 A Smith newsagent – this business was later carried on by his son James and by his granddaughter, Gladys
and her husband Frank Bayley. In 1911 this was the home of Alfred Goodwin a firelighter manufacturer.

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491 William Fletcher hairdresser and electric masseur – his wife Ann was a tobacconist and his sister-in-law
Ada Cyples was a shorthand writer and typist, though disengaged at the time of the 1911 census.

493 JE Warner butcher – The 1911 census gives Edgar Baddeley an accountant.

495 Alfred Thomas fruiterer – not listed 1911 census

497 - not listed 1911 census

499 John Hobson draper – not listed 1911 census.

This may suggest that the latter properties were uncompleted in April 1911.

The clientele for these businesses came from the inhabitants of the some 160 houses that Jones and his partners had
built by that date, together with perhaps another 60 which had recently been built in Hartshill Road, Victoria Street
and Stanley Road as well as those from the older parts of Hartshill and of course more were planned. On the opposite
side of Hartshill in the development by Jones and Evans were a hairdresser, Herbert Bloor, a draper, Joseph Morris, a
house furnisher, James Mountford, a dairyman, William Jones, a milliner, Florence Thompson a cycle dealer, Percy
Yates and a fishmonger, William Hand.

Hartshill Road can be divided into three sections; the above development and the two older-built parts - by the church
and that at the junctions of Hartshill Road, Stoke Old Road and Shelton New Road. Unlike the twentieth century
development, both centres were the products of evolution rather than deliberate planning and were well supplied with
that centre of communal life - the public house. Towards the church there were three pubs and between Victoria
Street and the Newcastle boundary, five pubs and an off-licence, even excluding the Greyhound which straddled the
borough boundary. Here Hartshill merged into George Street, Newcastle and most of the premises there were shops,
which included a post office-cum-stationer, a chemist and two herbalists, three butchers, three grocers and two
tobacconist/hairdressers and fruiterer, to add to the two fruiterers, two grocers, two confectioners, a fishmonger and
two fried fish dealers in Hartshill Road. By the Church there were also two fried fish dealers, as well as two
greengrocers, two newsagents, two confectioners and a pawnbroker. The opposite end of Hartshill Road had a
second hand clothes dealer, William Bamford, and there was another pawnbroker in George Street. This is a reflection
of the fact that there positioning was influenced by a need for the latter in the older, poorer, labouring parts of the
district than in the newer houses, populated by the skilled working class and lower middle class.

The pawnbroker, on the corner of Hartshill Road and Longfield Place, had left by 1921, replaced by the furniture
dealer, Henry Naylor, who had other premises on the opposite side of the road, on the corner of Allen Street. Bamford
was still featured in 1936. By 1924 a branch of the Boyce Adams grocery chain had opened, taking over the business
of George Birbeck in the double fronted shop at the centre of the parade. In 1925 the Silverdale Co-operative Society
built grocery, butchers and confectionery shops on the corner of Hartshill Road and The Avenue. They had already
opened a grocery and bakery on Shelton New Road to which complex they later added a dairy. This invasion of the
multiple grocer had little effect upon the continued existence rival businesses in the immediate vicinity. There were as
many small grocers in 1940 had there had been in 1921, in that part of Hartshill between The Avenue and Victoria
Street and an increase in those general shopkeepers who combined grocery and confectionery. They were of course
sustained by the great increase in housing during the period. The milk dealer had disappeared by 1940, but all the
other previous businesses were represented, if not in situ then by successors elsewhere. There were in addition a
fruiterer and a greengrocer and two ladies’ hairdressers, a business unknown before the First World War. There was a
tripe dresser, newly established and a specialist tobacconist, Fred Pointon, who also maintained a circulating library,
in premises which had been formerly part of the corner grocer’s shop. For a brief time previously this had been
Newton’s – wireless dealers and electricians.

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Public Transport

The large-scale development of Hartshill in the early years of the twentieth century brought the advent of the tram in
1904 to connect with Stoke and Newcastle (trams had connected Hanley and Newcastle via Shelton New Road in
1900). The North Staffordshire Railway constructed a halt – Hartshill and Basford – on the line between Stoke and
Newcastle the following year. Neither tram or railway service survived the decade after the First World War as bus
services proliferated. The train service ended in 1926 and trams throughout North Staffordshire ended in 1928.

Paul Prince ran a bus service from Stoke to Newcastle from 1922. He operated from premises at the corner of Allen
Street, which later became the original premises of Ashlands Garage. The service was acquired by the PET in 1929,
but Mr Prince continued to hold a licence to run tours and excursions until 1936. Davies Transport (Stoke) Ltd also
operated on the Stoke to Newcastle route from the Victory Garage in Shelton Old Road. Their service was bought by
the PMT in 1954. F Peake trading as North Staffs Motors also ran buses between Stoke and Newcastle until May 1939
when the business was taken over by the Associated Bus Company. Associated themselves amalgamated with P M T
in 1944.

The Watch Committee decided to regulate bus services in September 1923 and awarded operator’s licences to A
Bloor, H. Davies, P. Prince, G. Rowley and the Potteries Electric Traction to run services between Stoke and Newcastle
with a week day service at six minute intervals. They also awarded tour licences to Arthur Bloor and Harry Naylor.
This interval compares with 2 minutes on the “main line” Longton to Tunstall route. Driver’s licences were granted to
David and William Morgan of 767 Hartshill Road and conductor’s licences to Hayden Bloor and Charles Wynne. In
1926 there were twelve driver’s licences issued to men with addresses in Hartshill and Basford, and 17 in 1930, all
except one, Allen Bloor, employed by the Potteries Election Traction Co. There were 21 holding conductor’s licences.
Allen Bloor ran his buses from what is now part of Moore’s Metals.

In 1927 it was held that, unlike in other parts of the City it was impractical to run services through Hartshill and
Basford to a timetable. It is also obvious from a letter in the Sentinel from 1930 that there were no fixed stops either
and that services operated on a “hail and ride” system such as that recently introduced on some housing estates. In
March 1928 W Cooper was refused a licence to run a service from Stoke to terminate on the Harpfield Estate. Trams
were withdrawn from the Stoke to Newcastle service with effect from 2 April 1928 and the PET was granted eight ‘bus
licenses as part of a total of fifty in lieu of their tram services. They were refused licences to operate a service from
Stoke to Wolstanton via both Hartshill and North Street/Shelton New Road as were Stoke-on-Trent Motors.