New Page 1

Mention must also be made of Martyns, who had several shops, the main one being in Queen Street, where they also had the works from which they operated as manufacturing chemists.

An earthenware pot lid for cold cream.

In the case of this firm we have the advantage of having an eye witness account of them. Winifred Onions, in her remarkable memoirs, writes about her first job. She does not mention the name of the firm but it must have been Martyns as they were the only such firm in Queen Street.

"By 1915, I was fourteen and ready to go to work – but to do what? ... Dad came home one day and said I had to go and see the manager of a shop in Queen Street, Wolverhampton. It turned out to be a manufacturing chemist. He looked me up and down – and said I was to start the next Monday.

It was a place down an alley. The head one took me in – it was November, and it was so cold it was like an icebox. There was no heat whatsoever, and the smell of the chemicals was most unpleasant. I didn’t like it a bit! My first job was bottling cough mixture, and whether it was the smell or the cold, I don’t know – but I promptly fainted! I remember that when I came round, having been given Sal volatile, they lit a little gas ring and tried to get me warm. However, you were not allowed to give up easily at our house and I had to stick it out for a few more weeks! "

An earthenware pot lid for toothpaste.

But it was war time and Martyn's were operating the rationing scheme in the same way as many other shopkeepers. Winifred records: "Fortunately, materials for making medicines and boot polishes and black lead and such like, became scarce, and so I was moved into another part of the shop which dealt with grocery "dry goods" – and so for a few more weeks, all was well … until I was told to tell customers that we hadn’t got this or we hadn’t got that, when all the time it was under the counter. This, I could not stand and I told the manager that I had been brought up to tell the truth and that I could not tell lies for him. (This, by the way, was for a wage of 8/- a week, and I had to walk two miles to work, and two miles back because I couldn’t afford the four pence bus fare.)". So Winifred went and got a job in a munitions factory.

Just to add a note to this excursion through the local chemists, in the 1930 Red Book, Boots are back at both Queen Street and Chapel Ash. There are still, of course, two Warners. And under Chemists – Manufacturing, there are not only Martyns Stores and Reade Brothers, but also A. Crosbie Ltd., of Walsall Street (who seem to be the same firm as the paint manufacturing company); J. C. Major of Rough Hills (and he must be the Major of the Major Oil Company which had amalgamated with Midland Tar Distillers); as well as three others. If we also note that Reade Bros, also appear under the classification "Confectioners (Wholesale)" we are reminded what a diverse lot our chemists turned out to be.


Return to the previous page	Return to the beginning

CHEMIST SHOPS