Research by Kai Simmons

Starting Resources

Already in the Sainsbury’s Archives:

• Details of the store were Harry Webb worked - the Enfield branch at 16 Church St. was opened in 1898.
• The Sainsbury’s staff records contain the entry for Harry Webb.
• Information in the staff records gives: Name, Address, Status (single), Date Engaged (30.11.1912), References (those entered tell us that he been working for at least four years before joining Sainsbury’s), Salary (17 shillings per week for living ‘out’, i.e. board and lodging has not been deducted from this), Position (porter, a description which included the delivery boys), Branch sent to, and a Leaving date (31.10.14) with Cause of leaving (‘own accord’).
• During an open day within Sainsbury’s, a colleague approached us with the information that he thought there was a War Memorial in Enfield, listing those who were members of the local Boys’ Brigade, which included a Harry Webb. This led us to believe that Harry left Sainsbury’s to join the armed forces as they recruited in the first few months of World War I.
• Visual Materials: 1). A picture of the Enfield branch taken in 1901 – this shows the exterior of the shop (bedecked with poultry and fowl), with seven members of the serving staff standing outside. 2). A picture of Harry Webb with his delivery tricycle taken in 1913. He is in the typical delivery uniform of the time (dark suit, boots, peaked cap, plus leather satchel for carrying orders and collecting cash); the tricycle box clearly shows “J. Sainsbury Church Street, Enfield”. He is a young man in this picture, we guessed that he was certainly still a teenager (make up your own mind) – further than that we had no reference to his birth.

Aims

• To discover any possible further details about Harry Webb, particularly his leisure time and his eventual fate (i.e. did he fight in the War and did he survive?)
• To explore the kind of life that a young man in his social and economic position at that time may have led, particularly outside of working hours: for example, what sort of possible leisure activities were popular and accessible then and there.
• To observe the changes in a local area (Enfield) over the period from 1901 to 2001. This would be done first in visual terms and then by consulting histories of the area and historical documents.
• To put all of this in the context of Sainsbury’s as a company, linking it back to other references of the company’s staff.

Groundwork

I contacted the Enfield library. The Central library, which is located very close to Church Street, recommended contacting the local historian, Graham Dalling, who could be consulted by appointment at the Local History branch of the library in Palmer’s Green.

I spoke to Graham Dalling, who supplied some very useful background information to the period: transport links; possible leisure-time activities for someone in Harry’s position; military connections between Enfield and the First World War; as well as his own childhood memories of the store (it was not closed until 1963) and a basic reading list which I could access in the Central library. I also arranged an appointment, particularly to view street directories and maps of the period.

From the Guildhall Library in London we obtained a copy of the Ordnance Survey map from 1920 covering the area around Enfield Town and eastwards including the Ponder’s End and Enfield Highway areas.

Fieldwork

I travelled to Enfield to visit the site of the Sainsbury’s store. Church Street still stands in much the same layout as it did at the beginning of the 20^th century. A travel agent now occupies no. 16, but it was clear from the 1901 photo that the structure and exterior above the shop appeared virtually unchanged over 100 years.

 I took photos of the store and the street and the surrounding area. On the other side of Church Street is a bandstand, which now has a small car park around it – the inscription dates it as a commemoration of the coronation of Edward VII (1901), so it would have been a familiar sight to Harry Webb.

 The end of Church Street leads towards Enfield Chase. On Chase Green there is a cenotaph which commemorates the dead of both World Wars, but does not list any names. I was aware that this memorial would not lead me towards Harry, but I did notice wreaths laid (it was the week after Remembrance Sunday) for both the Middlesex Regiment and the Royal Fusiliers. These had already been suggested to me as regiments which drew a lot of men from the Enfield area in the First World War and therefore possible routes into the armed forces for Harry if he fought.

 I then set off to visit the home address which features in Harry Webb’s personnel entry. Eastfield Road in Enfield Wash is approximately two miles ‘as the crow flies’ from the centre of Enfield where the Church Street store was located, but nearer three miles walking east to Ponder’s End and then following the Hertford Road north towards Waltham Cross. There would have been a tram service following this route by 1912 in the two stages described above. But at this point I was unsure as to whether Harry would have had the money or the inclination to travel to work by public transport, so I decided to walk the journey following the main roads.

  The journey took approximately 1 hour in total. The open fields and nurseries (market gardening was a common economic activity in the whole area) which Harry would have passed on his journey have largely been replaced: certainly more housing, but also industrial parks, a new supermarket, and ‘out-of-town’ leisure activities such as restaurants and a multiplex cinema. I took pictures of any buildings which looked as if they might relate to the period in which Harry made the journey, although these were few and far between – the majority of current development appeared to have been constructed in the twentieth century and few of those in the earlier decades.

 Eastfield Road was greatly changed from Harry’s time. The OS 1920 map of the road shows houses on the north side of the road, with a school the only building on the opposite side. Harry’s address was given as number 28 in 1912. Now, however, there are houses on only the south side of the road (a school still stands between them in the same position) and these are ‘odd’ numbers. So 28 has disappeared. On the side where houses stood in 1920, there is now blocks of high rise housing and green space. A bigger school has appeared in the meantime, set back from the north side of the road.

 I travelled back to Enfield on the bus.

 A few days later I visited the local historian at a different branch of the library. From this meeting I obtained copy of an Ordnance Survey map from 1914 of the area around Enfield Town. This supported the 1920 map and, other than being closer to the time that Harry Webb joined Sainsbury’s, shows greater detail. The bandstand mentioned above is labelled, as is the Queen’s Hall cinema on London Road and the local park, with its bathing pond and aviary. The tramlines and termini are marked on the streets.

 I also made copies of the Street Directory of 1904/1905 featuring the entry for Church Street, with Sainsbury’s branch at No. 16, and Eastfield Road, which lists ‘Webb Henry’ at 28 and ‘Webb James H’ at 24. From this we conjectured that the Henry listed was not Harry, as he would have been too young, but possibly his father (or uncle or grandfather). The other Webb, two doors away, could well have been another family member.

 Following discussion around this subject, I was led to a possible alternative version of Harry’s life. The ‘references’ column in the 1912 personnel entry shows that he worked for a company called Parsons & Co. based in Covent Garden in Central London for 3 years 7 months, followed by 6 months at the Edison Electric Co. which was based in Enfield. The former had previously led us to conclude that Harry may have been born and/or brought up in Central London, moving to Enfield after he had begun his working life (typical school-leaving age was 12-14 years), in keeping with the popular demographic trend of the time to move out to the ‘suburbs’. However, the listing of (almost certainly) Harry’s family in Enfield some seven years before he began work for Sainsbury’s, led us to consider that he may have grown up in the area. The proliferation of fruit-growing businesses in Enfield was a possible connection to a company selling its wares in Covent Garden market. So perhaps this is what led Harry away from his childhood town into the city. If so, what led him out again to Edison’s and then Sainsbury’s? Homesickness? Better job prospects? This raised some very interesting questions.

 Questions also remained about Harry’s story after leaving Sainsbury’s. We contacted the Public Records Office, who would hopefully have access to his military records if there were any. The Enfield Boys Brigade was also consulted, in the hope that Harry Webb may have had some involvement with them which remained on record. At the time of writing, we are still awaiting the results of their research.

 Paramount to solving the issue of Harry’s childhood was the publishing of the 1901 census data, not released for public access until January 2002.  Like several million other users, we joined the rush to gain access to the site on 2^nd January and fell victim to the effects of over-demand.  We are hoping to find that Harry was living at 28 Eastfield Road in 1901, a time when he would certainly have still been a young boy, as the census entry will give us information about his place of birth, his age and his family circumstances.

 As to the question of how Harry made his way to work and back home every day, there was still some conjecture. The Enfield historian was of the opinion that the tram fares would not have been beyond the reach of Harry’s wages, but travelling twice a day on two different lines would have made a sizeable dent in his income. Not that either one or the other is necessarily the case: perhaps he took the tram some of the time (in bad weather/ during the winter/ according to company); perhaps he always took the tram on one leg of the journey and always walked the other. We think it is highly unlikely (although nothing in historical management guides categorically forbid it) that Harry was allowed to use his delivery tricycle as private transport to and from work. This, on the other hand, does not rule out the possibility of him owning his own private cycle for that purpose and switching to the shop bike upon arrival (apart from the exhaustion factor – but then, most modern courier cyclists do exactly the same).

 All of this information took us closer to building up a more detailed picture of both Harry Webb himself and a ‘typical’ worker of his time. Discovering the opportunities which were available to Harry does not mean we can say for certain what his personal interests and passions actually were. Part of the process was almost certainly going to involve some degree of fictionalisation, but in the wider context of a historical period the aim was to provide examples, which collectively construct some sort of narrative, as well as specific facts. Nonetheless, many of the steps taken in this exercise led us closer to finding a real person and to locating him in a real time and place.

 TO BE CONTINUED……..