The previous post looked at the early years of the former grocer shop at the foot of Hillhead Street, pictured above. The first owner, for whom the premises were built in 1880, was Thomas Forgan. He sold the business in 1891 to grocer Thomas Blyth, who continued the business into the period when the old village of Lundin Mill was expanding into the fashionable Lundin Links, frequented by city dwellers seeking sea air and golf. Against that backdrop of change, the story of the grocer shop became more complicated for a time.
The report below from the 1 July 1897 Leven Advertiser encapsulates what was happening to the village at the time. The long-standing vision to develop Lundin Links, which dated back to the arrival of the railway in 1857, was finally being realised. New villas were being erected and the beginnings of new facilities to support them were in evidence. In contrast to the weavers cottages of Lundin Mill, these homes had "an air of wealth and refinement" and featured "the latest improvements and conveniences". The enterprise was attracting "ready purchasers and inhabitants".
One of those purchasers was Richard Wedderspoon - a commercial traveller in the wine and spirit trade, employee of John Somerville and Company, wine and spirit merchants of Leith. He purchased St Margaret's on Victoria Road (named after his wife and young daughter). Although he owned the property, he and his family were listed as summer visitors to Lundin Links during the summer season, to advertise the fact that they were in residence. An example of this can be seen below from the 20 July 1899 Leven Advertiser.
Around 1898, Wedderspoon became a partner at Sacell Brewery in Paisley and, around the same time, purchased the Hillhead licensed grocer shop, along with several other properties on Hillhead Street, from Thomas Blyth. Presumably, the shop could be an outlet for the products of his employer. On the 1899 Largo Parish Valuation Roll, Wedderspoon owned eleven properties across Lundin Links and Lundin Mill. A man named Arthur Booth was brought in as tenant to run the licensed grocer. The 23 December 1898 East of Fife Record piece below confirmed the transfer of the license from Blyth to Booth.
Booth's name appeared above the grocer shop door and, in fact, close inspection of the shop lintel in recent years reveals the ghostly outline of the name A Booth and the word Licensed in small letters underneath (see photographs below).
A few months after the license was transferred to Booth, the 26 May 1899 East of Fife Record above reported that Wedderspoon had sold the business to Mr Booth. However, subsequent events suggest that this was not true. The article below from the 21 April 1900 St Andrews Citizen tells us that the previous year it had been reported that Booth "had bought the business" but now it had become clear that "the business he got the license for was not his at all" but belonged to Wedderspoon "who has become bankrupt". Furthermore, the firm that Wedderspoon was connected with was a creditor of Booth's. The sequence of events was described as "little short of a scandal".
The exposure of the truth brought an end to the involvement of both Wedderspoon and Booth in the business of the Lundin Mill grocer shop. Perhaps as part of the bankruptcy process, the shop and all the other properties that Wedderspoon had owned came into the ownership Wedderspoon's former employer John Somerville and Son of Leith. The firm brought in a new grocer named Matthew Barrie with previous experience in East Lothian and Berwick-Upon-Tweed as tenant to run the shop (as recorded in the 1900 Largo Parish Valuation Roll above).
Barrie came forward to the District Licensing Court in April 1900 but was initially refused a license due to the unsatisfactory way in which the enterprise had been run prior to his appointment. Meanwhile, by 1901 census, Richard Wedderspoon had relocated to London and was acting as a commercial traveller selling Scotch Whisky. He later emigrated to New Zealand, where he lived out the remainder of his life.
Barrie appealed the license refusal, and the following month, the shop's license was returned. The 4 May 1900 East of Fife Record reported that the premises had been licensed for along time, that Barrie was unconnected to the previous owner and tenant, and that nearly 200 persons had signed a petition in favour of the license. The affairs of the grocer shop were finally back on an even keel.
Matthew Barrie had moved to Lundin Links with his wife Maggie and two infant children, William and Dolina. Another daughter, Phyllis, was born there in 1902. After the early hiccup with the license, Barrie ran a successful business. As the adverts above and below show, he positioned himself as a wine and provision merchant and 'Italian Warehouseman' (a fashionable term used at the time for high-class grocery provision). Whisky was given special mention in his adverts.
Matthew Barrie moved on in 1905, heading back south to Melrose, where he and son William had a grocer shop on the High Street for many years. William Barrie served in the First World War, operating one of the first tanks to see action in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme, following special secret training. He was wounded several times during his service but eventually returned to Melrose and took over his father's grocery business. Below is a view of the Hillhead Street shop from the rear from around the time of the Barrie family. The red arrow on the left points to the shop sign on the gable end, while the other arrow indicates its proximity to the Crusoe Hall (or Temperance Hall), which was a well-used facility at the time. In the next post, a final part in the story of the shop.
RSS Feed
