Retailing
Woodbridge’s other department store was started by R H Rowland after he took over Issit and Dunnett’s ironmongery business on The Thoroughfare in 1873. He subsequently built up a department store which sold a comprehensive range of goods. A photograph of the store is shown here as an advertisement which gives an idea of the range of goods on offer. The business closed in 1936 and, sometime after the Second World War, the premises were taken over by F W Woolworth.
R H Rowland’s department store on The Thoroughfare. After the Second World War the building was taken over by F W Woolworth. They closed in 2009 The building is now occupied by Lloyds the Chemists and Fat Face.
An advertisement for R H Rowland’s
Department Store.
Link to other adverts showing the range of products offered for sale.
Some retailers increased their profitability by opening branches in new areas and became known as chain-stores. Between the 1870s and the mid-1890s, most chain stores sold either footwear or grocery. Then there was a marked growth in chain stores selling either meat, men's clothing, women's wear or chemists' goods.
The number of such stores in Woodbridge is shown by this table. In 1874 the only national chain store in the town was Clark’s Boots and Shoes. The other chain stores were all confined to south east Suffolk. They included the draper Footman & Pretty and the grocer Joseph Turner which were both offshoots of shops in Ipswich. They were both still in Woodbridge when, in 1892, they were joined by two national chains - The Industrial Co-op Society who had a branch selling groceries and an outlet of the boot manufactures Freeman, Hardy & Willis.
Changes in the number of chain stores in Woodbridge
By 1937 the local chain stores had left the town and the two national chains which were here in 1892 were joined by three others. These were the London Central Meat Company, The International Tea Company and Walker’s grocery store.
The interior of Walker's grocery store
(now part of Barretts furnishing department).
