James Evans Powell appears on the scene in the 1920s. Born in 1880 of Welsh parents at Newton near Glasgow, he studied at an agricultural college in Yorkshire in his youth. The 1921 Census records him as a manufacturing chemist in Croydon, an employer at 3-5 Frith Road. He is aged 41 and unmarried.
The Phoenix Rises…
Land Registry records on Find My Past confirm that in July 1925 James Evans Powell became the freehold proprietor of 23 High Street, Tooting, and the adjacent six cottages in Angel Court. According to reports the latter had been condemned for many years and were in the worst part of Tooting.
At some point he also acquired the adjoining premises at number 21 which fortuitously would give the entire plot a wider frontage on to the High Street. By the beginning of the new decade 50 year old James Evans Powell was, according to rate books, the registered owner of the site proposed for the new market.
It is possible that Mr Powell may have benefited financially as the London manager of Hall Lewis and Co., a Wagon Finance company, when it floated as a public company in 1925. Perhaps he decided to invest in property in the prospering neighbourhood of Tooting where his elder brother Dr Daniel Powell had a well-established medical practice at 101 High Street.
This being the case, what business foresight and what a sound investment by Mr Powell.
On 7th February 1930 just a week after the fire it was reported that the Mayor Cllr T. Fox paid a visit to the charred remains of the market and gave an assurance to the stallholders that the Borough Council would expedite the building of a new market on the site of Angel Court (High Street) .
Shortly after the Mayor’s assurance the market’s architect John James Joass made an application to the London County Council (LCC) on 11th February for the covering over of Angel Court next High Street.
What an exceptionally speedy decision only a month after the disaster. Had the site already been earmarked for development and were other powerful influences at play behind the scenes?
A close look at records in the London Metropolitan Archives reveals that the very first drawings for the new market were in fact submitted on 31st January 1930, the day after the fire!
Power and Influence
One might wonder why John James Joass, a renowned architect and Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, applied his expertise to a relatively lowly project like Tooting Market. It’s quite likely there were links between the builder Henry G White, the architect JJ Joass and the owner James E Powell, and that they moved in the same business, political and social circles.
When JE Powell was working for Hall, Lewis and Co. his offices in Pall Mall were only a few blocks away from those of JJ Joass in St James’s Place. H G White was a prominent member of Battersea Council and for a short time Powell was a Tooting councillor so it’s most likely their paths crossed too. White’s construction company was based in Chelsea where Joass also lived for a time, and both had strong links to Poole in Dorset.
Into this mix add the MP Sir Alfred Butt and Alderman AJ Hurley, owner and editor of the Tooting and Balham Gazette, and it makes for a powerful and influential group of businessmen.
Tooting is full of patriotism…
Apparently residents had expressed concern that the (building) contract had not been awarded to a local firm. However it was reported that the contractor HG White, even though a councillor for Battersea, considered himself to be ‘a local’ and had in fact employed a local workforce.
Make way for the new
By March 1930 discussions were well under way with the council for the new L-shaped market. In June 1930 the plans for the site were revised to fulfil the council’s request for both market entrances to be set further back from the road allowing greater pavement space for the potential 1,200 customers.
On 25th June James Evans Powell, as the owner and freeholder of the site, signed the application to the LCC for its consent to the erection of a building (covered market) at 22 Totterdown Street, Tooting and 21-23 Tooting High Street.
Two weeks later on 10th July the LCC approved the formation and laying out of a street for foot traffic to lead from Totterdown Street to Tooting High Street. James Evans Powell now had planning consent for his new Tooting Market.
This entry in a 1930 Rate Book shows that the buildings at 21/ 23 High Street and Angel Court were demolished, creating the entrance to Tooting Market. These were subsequently developed by architects Messrs Belcher and Joass of Saint James’s Place and builders Messrs White and Johnson of College Place, Chelsea.
Whilst developing the site the architects had been hampered by surrounding properties which divided the area. Nevertheless it was agreed that an impressive market had been constructed out of the available land. The disused burial site behind what had once been the Defoe/Congregational Chapel at 19 High Street may well have caused problems. A 1930 plan of the market shows the burial ground shaded in mauve to the rear of what by then had become shops. In 2014 campaigners won a decisive victory against an application to develop the site. Plans to remodel the façade were withdrawn and in 2015, during works to extend the retail premises, human remains were unearthed in the cemetery grounds and re-interred elsewhere on the site: https://tootinghistory.org.uk/2017/08/01/defoe-chapel-tooting-high-street/
A Red-letter Day in Tooting
The new Tooting Market opened on Thursday 23rd October 1930, and the event was comprehensively reported in the local newspapers the following day.
The photo which appeared in the Streatham News shows not only the immense turnout but also, rather significantly, James Powell’s butcher’s stall on the right. It’s also possible to see a partial sign top left for Bargain Centre, a grocery stall established by Jack Cohen of Tesco fame.
‘Enthusiastic scenes were witnessed yesterday at the opening ceremony. Thousands of people congregated inside the premises and in the streets adjoining, thus giving a tremendous send off to the new project. A big posse of police had great difficulty in controlling the crowd which swept down the rope barriers and literally raided the place in their keen anxiety to hear and see the opening ceremony.’
BNA: Streatham News and South Western Star – Friday 24 October 1930
The Last Word in London Markets
There were details too on the layout and structure of the new market which was double the size of the old one and described as ‘undoubtedly a great asset to the marketing industry of Tooting.
The market runs from the Broadway to Totterdown Street through what was formerly Angel Court. It’s total cost exclusive of site will not be much less than £10,000. In all respects it is the last word in London markets.
The construction is most solid. There are two large entrances, one from the High Street, Tooting’s main thoroughfare and the other in Totterdown Street and both have imposing frontages of white Atlas cement with the words in bold type Tooting Market 1930.
It is interesting to read this description of the frontages at the time of opening and compare with those of today . The white frontage has, in part, been painted red and 1930 has disappeared from the Totterdown Road entrance.
Except for the frontage in High Street it is a one storey structure of a permanent character, brick and cement walls, steel girders and glazed roof. Every known marketing commodity is represented by the stallholders who seemed very enthusiastic to make the gigantic undertaking a success. The whole of the market is let.
Quite a number of the old stallholders from the Mitcham Road site transferred to the new market, understandably keen to continue trading albeit under a new roof.
Enterprise and Courage
Dignitaries attending included the Mayor of Wandsworth Councillor T. Cox, Sir Alfred Butt, Alderman A.J. Hurley, Dr Daniel E. Powell, the proprietor Mr James E. Powell, the builder Cllr H. G. White and several of the leading stallholders.
In their speeches both the Mayor and Sir Alfred praised the enterprise and courage of James Powell for having created a wonderful new home for Tooting Market.
Sir Alfred Butt received an enthusiastic response from the crowd when he commented :
“Whilst I don’t pretend to be an expert… I cannot help thinking that the new Tooting Market is far superior in every way to the old one. …it’s now possible to purchase practically any article from a mouse trap to a gramophone.”
An essentially British Market
As he declared the market open Sir Alfred praised the variety of the merchandise on sale:
‘There is everything to satisfy the inner man: you can be clothed on the most advantageous terms; also there is music to comfort you, and toys to bring joy to the children. All these things are obtainable in the stalls around us.’
‘What most pleases me is that the entire new market is essentially British throughout. I don’t pretend to know whether the contents of the stores are all British, but I’m informed that the great percentage of the goods are.’
‘I have little doubt that it is going to be a great success and contribute another important monument to the growing prosperity of Tooting.’
Boon To The Housewife
By January 1931, a mere three months after opening, the market was deemed to be an undoubted asset to Tooting and a boon to the housewife.
It is of note that the enlarged Woolworth’s in Mitcham Road was one of the largest stores in South London. Competition in Tooting was hotting up!
Not only was it the place to shop it had investment potential too. Comments in the press at this time suggest that property in the form of shops, houses and land are to be regarded as the safest possible form of investment …and investors are turning more and more to this class of investment which offers ample return on the money invested.
So a boon for James Evans Powell too!
A year after the ‘memorable and disastrous fire’, the new market was still proving popular with customers and the first anniversary in October 1931 was to be celebrated with a special Market Week. Business for the stallholders was progressing nicely. Well, at least for a while…
An Ill-Fated Market
Sadly, as is often the case, history tends to repeat itself. The new market was ill-fated as disaster struck again in July 1933….
Tooting Market was on fire!
It was the biggest blaze South West London had known for many years and strenuous efforts on the part of over forty firemen were needed to subdue it. Damage was estimated at £20,000.
It was reported that the fire had broken out shortly before 2am and flames thirty feet high were soon shooting through the roof. Within a few minutes the whole of the Totterdown Street end of the market was a sheet of flames and the entire north wing, over 100 yards long, was destroyed.
(BNA: South Western Star – Friday 14 July 1933)
White Hot Iron
According to eyewitness statements: ‘Flames were coming through the roof and at the Totterdown end the road was very hot from the heat of the fire. The poor old market looked just like a piece of white-hot iron with sparks flying off it.’
Horses Rescued
After the blaze all that was left of the portion of Tooting Market which was destroyed by fire early on Sunday morning. PC Buck and PC Bowden who did heroic work in rescuing horses from a neighbouring stable.
(BNA: Streatham News – Friday 14 July 1933)
Indestructible?
But how could this have happened? The new Tooting Market was believed to have been indestructible by fire after an assurance by its builder, Councillor H G White. When the market first opened he had declared that ‘If all the rest of Tooting were reduced to ashes, the market would remain; a monument to the greatness of the district.” With hindsight a somewhat rash claim…..
Busy Once Again
So, yet another devastating event in the history of Tooting Market but as before it survived to fight another day, reopening just a few months later in October 1933.
It’s possible the 1930 date carved on the Totterdown façade, as reported at the opening ceremony, was damaged in the fire and not replaced.
‘The portion of Tooting Market which was destroyed by fire was opened yesterday by the Mayor of Wandsworth, the section having been re-built. Shoppers were soon busy at the stalls’. (BNA: Streatham News – Friday 13 October 1933)
In 1934 there were 31 stalls in the market, almost half of which were run by traders from the old market in Mitcham Road. A number of these were from Jewish families which reflected what was happening in high streets in the first half of the 20th Century as Jews moved out of London and set up businesses in the suburbs, particularly in Tooting. Many of them were bespoke tailors such as the Cedar, Shavick and Krett families.
The Emanuels were an old established Jewish family of fruiterers and greengrocers who feature throughout much of the old and new market’s history. They ran a stall at the High Street entrance for over 50 years. (BNA: Streatham News – Friday 24th October 1930)
What’s in a name?
There were new names too in the early ‘30s such as grocers Cohen and Freeman trading as Bargain Centres (London) Ltd. Small beginnings maybe, but Jack Cohen went on to establish the huge supermarket chain we know today as Tesco, and it all started in Tooting Market!
Dame Shirley Porter explains in her book Nothing like a Dame (2007) that her birth in November 1930 coincided with her father Jack’s preparations for his Bargain Centre stall in Tooting Market.
One of the goods Jack repackaged and sold in the early 1920s was tea which is how the name TESCO originated. The tea was from Thomas Edward Stockwell, so Jack made labels using the initials of the supplier’s name (TES) and the first two letters of his surname (CO), forming the word TESCO. The Tesco brand first formally appeared in 1924.
In spite of being the proprietor of the market James Evans Powell was not averse to running stalls himself and is shown variously in trade directories over the years as a tobacconist, a butcher, a greengrocer, and a china and glass dealer. Records show too that he owned a garage at 28 Totterdown Street right next door to the rear entrance of the market. But not everything would be plain sailing…
A rival market
Tooting Market was about to face fierce competition from the new Broadway Market when it opened in the High Street on 19th March 1936. It was situated just a few yards away. Claiming to be the largest in South London it had several advantages over Tooting Market, being closer to Tooting Broadway underground station and having two entrances on to the High Street as well as a third on Longmead Road.
Correspondence from early 1936 at the London Metropolitan Archives highlights James Evans Powell’s concern about the potential rival market.
Having surrendered a strip of land at his market’s entrance in 1930 to comply with building line regulations he felt it should now be restored to him, as newer premises in the High Street had not been bound by the same ‘set back’ criteria. As a result Tooting Market was now, he felt, obscured from view in the direction of Tooting Broadway and would be affected by the new market, the entrances to which had not been required to be set back.
The appeal seems to have been considered favourably by the Borough Council. However, when writing to the LCC on his client’s behalf architect JJ Joass explained that Mr Powell was ‘suffering considerable loss’. This fell on deaf ears.
The LCC rejected the application stating it would set an undesirable precedent and that in view of the large number of persons (about 1,200) for which there is accommodation in the market it appears desirable that the pavement should be as wide as possible. They suggested the question of publicity might however be overcome by the erection of a suitable sign or projecting shelter.
Perhaps James Powell had hoped his position as a Tooting councillor in the early 1930s might have influenced a more positive outcome.
Broadway Market’s forthcoming opening was well publicised with something to interest everyone. In addition to the variety of shops there were to be cookery and washing demonstrations.
Visitors were enticed to attend on 19th March by the offer of a free tea or coffee at J Lyons & Co. the well-known caterers, who had a shop in the centre of the market.
Tooting was greatly interested in the opening of the Broadway Market
Differing views
Speaking to the large crowd at the opening ceremony Mr Haynes, Chairman of the Tooting and Borough Chamber of Commerce commented on the differing views about the creation of another market. It could be argued that there were abundant facilities for trading already and that additional shops took business from the existing traders, but on the other hand it could be said that the more business premises there were the greater attraction to the shopper.
No doubt housewives would have sided with the latter point of view, but maybe not Mr Powell, the astute business man!
Records show that he owned farms in Surrey and Sussex during the 1930s and 1940s. He is also listed at various addresses in Tooting and the surrounding area, maybe renting rooms so that he could oversee trading within the market.
The housekeeper next door
An Electoral Register for 1939 shows James Evan(s) Powell living at 33 Montana Road.
Next door at number 35 was Mrs Daisy Lilian Boddington, keeping house for her elderly mother-in-law and 21 year old son, Edward (Daisy’s younger son George aged 12 is not recorded here and her husband Frederick Boddington, a fireman, was frequently recorded as living in fire station accommodation not in the family home).
At some point after that a friendship between the Daisy Boddington and James Evans Powell must have developed as by 1946 James Evans Powell, now aged 66, had moved into number 35 Montana Road with Daisy, 10 years his junior. A key moment that would have surprising consequences for Tooting Market…
A fishy business
In the 1940’s Post Office Directory for Tooting Market there are some familiar stallholders from 1934: the Emanuels, Jack Cohen (Bargain Centres), James Powell (two stalls), Eggee Ltd and Fred Romaine the fishmonger.
Thanks to Pamela Goodyer for photos of Romaine’s fishmongers and her father Will Black who worked pre and post war for Fred Romaine at his Tooting Market stall.
She recalls: ‘I remember my Dad working at the market, and while my mum was chatting to Fred and my dad, I took all the live eels out of their tray and put them on the ground. I got a right telling off!’
As well as this wet fish stall Fred also had a fried fish shop at 12 Totterdown Street.
The War Years
The 1940s must having been challenging times not only for families whose main breadwinner was away fighting in the war but also for the Tooting Market stallholders. It was a period of rationing and queues.
The scheme for food rationing introduced by the British government in 1940 ensured fair shares for all at a time of national shortage. Everyone, children included, was given a ration book with coupons. These were required before rationed goods such as sugar, meat, fat, bacon, cheese and eggs could be purchased.
Housewives had to register with particular retailers, so many in Tooting would have turned to their well trusted stallholders in the market, hoping too that as regulars they might also get ‘something under the counter’.
In 1941 the Wandsworth Food Control Committee looked into a report that a trader in a Tooting Market had 18,000 eggs and was selling a dozen at a time to his customers.
Eggs were rationed and normally sold singly so this must have caused a quite a stir amongst shoppers and news would have spread fast.
It’s likely the stallholder in question would have been Eggee Ltd in Tooting Market. However all was above board as it was a legitimate supply based on their sales pre-war.
Fruit and vegetables were never rationed but were often in short supply, especially tomatoes, onions and certain fruit, such as bananas, which were shipped from overseas.
The first import of bananas in 1946 caused panic in Tooting Market according to a newspaper report.
Tooting Market had its first bananas on Monday afternoon. The crowd of 400 people besieged Davis’s store. It was an amazing scene …. women hurried up the market dragging children behind them as if the bananas were being given away. (BNA: South Western Star – Friday 15 March 1946)
Eggs and bananas – staple items that we take for granted today.
Small beginnings
As female fashion developed after the war the trend for affordable ready to wear clothes was reflected in the High Street shops, and not least in Tooting Market where Jack(ie) Brafman, the self-styled Yiddisher Dior traded as a ladies’ outfitters having taken over the business from his parents Morris and Bella Brafman.
Jack was to become one of the most celebrated and popular traders in Petticoat Lane. He is still remembered in Tooting Market for his distinctive sales patter, selling dresses at rock-bottom prices. In fact on the 1939 Register he is shown as an ‘auctioneer’- a rather glorified term for a market trader delivering his sales pitch.
Another legend albeit on a larger scale was Charlie Watkins. It was in Tooting Market in 1949 that Charlie Watkins and his brother opened a record stall and started a mail order service for sheet music. Aptly named Melody Corner it proved an instant success.
Recognising the need for superior sound amplification Charlie Watkins would go on to found WEM (Watkins Electric Music) famed for manufacturing PA systems and loudspeaker stacks. His equipment would provide the major element in the ‘Sounds of the ‘60s’ and it completely changed the face of the music festival scene
A countryman at heart?
By the time Charlie Watkins was trading at Tooting Market in 1950 James Evans Powell, now 70, and possibly desirous of a quieter, rural life had moved to Court Lodge Farm, Bletchingley, where he was to see out the rest of his days. But he is not alone…… also registered at this address is his housekeeper Daisy L. Boddington.
Read Part 3 instalment to learn more…
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