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The Lower Arrow Valley owes much to the many skilled needle-making families who settled in
the area upon their move from Long Crendon in the latter half of the 19th Century. Among
them were entrepreneurs of a different kind. Such a one was Henry Johnson, Studley’s
postmaster in the late 19th century, who founded here the store which still bears his
name. Beginning in Marble Alley, in premises now known to us as ‘Jeromes’, he
dealt in ironmongery, furniture, stationery, groceries and provisions and was joined in
his turn by his son, Frederick J.Johnson. In 1900 he moved to his newly-built shop in
Alcester Road and early photographs show its front hung with wares after the fashion of
the day. The premises remain, a mecca of many delights and although the netting and
paraffin oil are gone this busy newsagent’s preserves all that is traditional in a
family business.
Henry’s account book of the 1890s has survived and it is
a precious collection of bits and pieces illuminating the every day purchases alike of the
villagers and their worthies. Doctor Bodger, in 1896, bought a carpet broom, milk and
sauce pans, a shovel, a fish-slice, lamp glasses, a toaster, a trivet and a steamer.
Messrs T.& M. Dixon bought a quarter dozen shovels at 2/9 each; Mr. Green at the Manor
House bought half a dozen hay rakes at 7½d each; and Wm. Hall & Co., chair seats,
brass nails,screws, bolts and oil. Henry numbered among his customers the Baptist Church,
who bought stamps for their 1885 Harvest Thanksgiving ; the National School Committee, who
bought keys and paper from him (cap paper at 1½d. the quire and better qualities at up to
7d.); Ipsley Parish Workhouse who bought a rake, hook, stales and a shovel; and the Parish
Council’s Mr. Crowley, who paid 3/6 for his shovel in the same year.
The list of commodities seems endless: looking glasses, stove-piping, manure forks,
scythes, castors, wreathes, paint, potatoes, window leathers, netting, cycle enamel,
inkwells, tun-dishes, hinges, nails, varnish, sashcord, files, washing and sauce pans,
magnesia, rabbit traps, fuel and lubricating oils, wall-paper, bedsteads, garden seeds,
chamber-pots and thatching yarn. The names of the customers to be seen in this cash-book
can be found in other contemporary documents such as wills, indentures and census returns,
all of them household names indeed. There is poignancy, too, for in May, 1890, a certain
Washford lady paid a deposit of 5/- on a perambulator costing £1.11.6, the balance at 1/-
per month. By the following year her repayments had become irregular, though her last
payment was made in July, 1892. It seems unlikely that there were any carpet brooms or
fish slices in that particular household.
© Alcester & District Local History Society 1985