On the High Street with Mr Rideway in 1933

I am standing outside numbers 116 & 118 Eltham High Street in 1933.

And this I know because in that year our old friend Llwyd Roberts painted the two properties which were just up from the old Castle pub.

At 118 there was the saddler William Barnes who had occupied the property from at least 1919 while nu 114 was the business premises of Charles Rideway who ran a dairy.

I can track Mr Rideway back to 1901 on the High Street selling his milk and by 1933 he seems to have diversified into sweets, chocolate and tobacco.

His immediate neighbour had been Arthur Moody who in 1919 described himself as a picture framer, and may still have been there when Mr Roberts painted the picture.

All of which just leaves William Barnes who had taken over the business from George French around 1919.

Now I don’t know whether the saddling business of Mr French was not doing so well but sometime between 1901 and 1911 he began renting out some of the building.

In room there was Charlotte Eliza Rose who at 71 described herself as a widow and in another were Mr and Mrs Brading.

So there are a lot of leads to follow up, including when the French family moved on, why Mr Rideway decided to diversify and how long his dairy continued to deliver the milk to Eltham residents after 1933.

I know that he died in 1954 and by then was living in Park View which is now Passey Place and given that he had seven children they may be much more to be revealed.

And the children do help place when the family arrived in Eltham.  The first three were born in Somerset between 1892 and 1896 while their fourth was born in Eltham in 1898.

And the key too much of the research will be the yearly street directories along with the electoral registers which are available down at the Heritage Centre and which will allow us to follow the movements of Mr Rideway, Mr Barnes and Mr Moody.

In the course of which we may come up with advert for Mr Rideway's business.

But for now I am interested in Mrs Charlotte Eliza Rose who was born in Eltham and had been married for 51 years, but that is for another time.

Picture; 116-118 Eltham High Street 1933, Llwyd Roberts.

Source material, census returns, 1901-11, Post Office London Directory 1909, 1919, and Electoral Roll 1932