Richard Hope-Hawkins

E & A Mitchell Wine Merchants Bristol

Mitchells were leading retail wine merchants in Bristol at one stage in the 1920’s and 30s’they owned and managed 17 shops in the city with branches in Portishead and Clevedon. The entire business was sold in the 1938 but such was their reputation the name was still traded until the late 1960’s.
Richard Hope-Hawkins family arrived in Stapleton, Easton, Bristol in 1895 and this is his personnel account of his family and their history.

The river Frome rises at Tetbury and runs its course through Wiltshire, Somerset, Avon into Bristol through Frenchay, Stapelton and underground at St Judes into the city centre.
Stapleton is where my ancestors first settled when they arrived from various parts of southern England including Totten, Southampton and Milton Abbas; they were already established as publicans and hoteliers.
Stapleton is an area with a rich and varied history and it is said that the village of Stapleton grew around a collapsed Roman building, Cromwell’s army staged a
Siege there in the 1600’s.Industry from the 1700’s included coal mining, brass, copper manufacturers, a pottery works and various distillers. There was once over seventy coal mining pits in Stapleton, in the 1890’s the mines produced over a thousand tons of coal per day.
The name of the district Easton derived from an old Saxon word ‘ton ‘meaning a farm and ‘east ‘where it is situated the full name came into being in the 17th century.
There was a turnpike gate that collected a traveller’s toll but the miners staged a rebellion and burned down the gates outside which is now the Three Blackbirds public house formally known as the Blackbird Tavern, 262 Stapleton Road.

In the 1830’s the Blackbirds Tavern would hold Gala days, the extended gardens stretched right down to the river Frome which brimmed with perch and eel. There would be entertainers, tightrope walkers, fire-eaters, musicians, singers and actors. Hot air balloons would ascend into the air and it must have been a marvellous spectacle for the community.

The Three Blackbirds once boasted a tennis court and dancing green, in 1813 a fete was held in the pub and grounds to honour our victories over the French in that year. Onwards from that year the owner of the Three Blackbirds began to let out the gardens for Gala fetes usually to celebrate Royal birthday’s .Over the next twenty years there were concerts and numerous entertainments held within the grounds. In March 1837 William Johnson took over the Blackbird Tavern and sold the extensive land for building but for a short while the newly established Clifton Zoological Society began fund raising fetes in the gardens with bands and firework displays. The Blackbird Tavern was referred to in a bill of sale dated May 15th 1854 as being situated in Stapleton Road or Wellington Gardens (named after the Duke of Wellington who visited Bristol in 1832) as a public house containing lawns, shrubbery, greens, gardens, a coach house, piggery, stabling and freehold with 1.5 acres that included a bowling green.
Soon the area was all converted to housing, some housing was damaged in the Second World War, but the greatest change in the area was the building of the M32 motorway beginning in the 1960’s when a massive area containing miners cottage were demolished and a number of streets and their names lost forever.
The Three Blackbirds is one of the earliest buildings in Stapleton Road along with No 268 which is the Manor House .A newspaper cutting used to be displayed in the pub framed it was taken from the British Magazine for October 1749 dated October 1st it stated ’Last night a country farmer was robbed between the Three Blackbirds and the Fox, on Stapleton Road of £5 and 5 shillings by two foot pads ( an archaic term for a robber of pedestrians considered very ‘low life ‘criminals ), though some colliers came along and pursued them, they escaped, by getting into the fields of lower Easton’. Alongside was a print of Hogarth’s ‘Gin Lane ‘of 1751 indicating the possibility of riots drinking there at the time!

Hogarth’s Gin Lane

Stapleton Road was a busy shopping centre in the 1800’s with horse drawn trams running to the city centre, W.G Grace who became a world famous cricketer practised as a GP in Stapleton, at Thissell House 57 Stapleton Road, his family lived at number 61, Grace practised until 1899 and my Gt Grandparents were on his patient list although in 1899 he went to live in a grander property in Victoria Square, Clifton.

My Great grandparents George and Ellen Anne Mitchell arrived from Dorset to become the landlords in 1895 of the Three Blackbirds; the pub remained in the family until 1938.

My Gt Grandparents built a brewery at the back of the pub and had three sons George James born in 1883, Ayling Taylor, (1879) and Laurence Hawkins (1891), known to family and friends as ‘Jack’ and four daughters Gladys, Cissie, Evie and Francis Stansfield the latter who became my grandmother, the family were related to the singer Gracie Fields and the Hawkins family from Plymouth. My Gt Grandfather George died on the 25th November 1903, aged 65 years; my Gt Grandmother Ellen Anne Mitchell became the sole licensee until the early part of 1916.

The Gell Family

My grandmother Francis married Arthur Fitzgerald Gell on the 22nd of August, 1907, Arthur was a cigar merchant, son of Ernest John Gell a commercial clerk and mother Emily, his sister Ethel was a year younger than him, they lived in the family home at 4 St Nicholas Park, Easton they had moved there from a much larger house No 4 St Marks Road which in the 1881 census states that my Gt Grandparents had a ‘live in’ domestic servant aged 13 called Florence Tarr.

The Gell family are first recognised in 1809 in Bristol, Joseph Gell and a succession of Gells were all Baptised at St.Philip and Jacob until December 1823 occupations included Vitner, Victualler, Navigator, Malster and a Gentlemen! Joseph Gell married a Betsy Herapath on the 30th January 1808 bad sadly Joseph died just after his on Henry was born and was buried in Temple Church on October 3rd 1824.

The marriage of Francis and Arthur took place at ‘All Hallows’, Easton by the Rev C.H.Dickinson.The family were long established in Bristol, l did not realise that they were married in a church which worships in the ‘Catholic tradition ‘All Hallows was designed by Sir George Oatley who designed much of Bristol University and St Monica’s Nursing Home the church was completed in 1901 and inside is still a treasure trove of architectural features and furnishings. My Grandparents began their married life in ‘Fernbank’18 Kensington Park Road in Brislington, my mother Dorothy Francis was born at the family home on the 4th March 1911.
It is interesting to note that my family have a long association in and around Easton and Lawrence Hill and l always feel my family roots when visiting Easton. Recently my Gt Grandparents (Gell) former home 4 St Nicholas Park sold for £149.500 this Victorian house very much modernised looked spacious and inviting in the estate agents brochure l personally have no qualms living in Easton. Labbi Siffre’s song ‘Going Back to My Roots ‘springs to mind!.

My mother’s father Arthur died when she was four and for a while she and my grandmother went to live at the Three Blackbirds with my pioneering Gt Grandmother who was an astute and enterprising businesswoman. During the First World War all my Gt Uncles joined the services Jack flew in the Royal Flying Corps probably as an observer pilot, Ayling and George joined the army.

The family consisting of my Gt Grandmother, Grandmother, GtAunt Gladys and mother moved to ‘Hazeldene’ a colonel style bungalow in Chapel Green Lane, Redland, it had large grounds with a tennis court and they were able to employ a Gardner and a housemaid. As the family prospered they purchased large houses in the fashionable Redland district of Bristol 19 and 20 Edgecumbe Road, 120 Cranbook Road and Fernbank Road.

My mother as a schoolgirl had a short walk to Cheltenham Road to attend Colstons Girls School in the family tradition; my Grandmother had been a pupil there too. The family regularly worshipped in the delightful Redland Green Chapel built in 1743 of Bath stone; it has a number of cherub’s carvings throughout the building. They also attended St Albans Church nearby in Westbury Park where much later my parents married in 1939.

It was while at Hazeldene that my Gt Grandmother received a black edged envelope that contained a card which read, In memory of Second Lieutenant GEORGE JAMES MITCHELL, attd.2nd/6th Bn., Gloucestershire Regiment who died aged 33 on 19 July 1916. George was killed in action at Fromelles, Northern France attached to the Devonshire regiment, his body was never recovered, but he is remembered with honour at the Loos Memorial.

I inherited one of his caps, medals and the bronze plaque recording his death, plus a bayonet belonging to one of my other Gt Uncles, unfortunately l was burgled and all except his bayonet was stolen. Recently the Bristol Evening Post and Western Daily Press have featured my articles on the battle of Fromelles and l’m actively involved in writing about matter relating to the battle and still am seeking the site where George James fell in battle.

Ayling and Jack returned home from fighting in the war, George had been the family brewery manager, this post now taken by Jack, under the guidance of my Gt Grandmother.

The family started a retail wine and spirit business which grew and grew, It was the ‘Oddbins’ of the 1920’s/30’s, for E.and A Mitchell’s Wine Merchants had over seventeen branches in and around Bristol with the head office being 71 to 75 West Street, St Philips.

The Families ‘Black Sheep’

Now Ayling had no business sense and became the family ‘black sheep’ he was dapper and dressed immaculately and had ‘an eye for the ladies’ my Gt Grandmother despaired of him and decided that he should begin a new life in

South Africa. A one way ticket was purchased on the SS Mauritania and Ayley was given a trunk full of new clothes, a thousand pounds and he also persuaded the family to buy an American Buick car. The family went to Southampton to wave a final goodbye to Ayley.

My mother was at home some months later when my Grandmother uttered the words ‘’Oh no’’ and collapsing into a chair uttered ‘’It’s Ayling at the front door!’’ He returned penniless having gambled everything away not even setting foot in South Africa, Ayley returned with the ship. The family decided to pay him a retainer for life and he made a home for himself in Newton Abbott in Devon, becoming a bookmaker at the local racecourse. At the age of sixty Ayley married a local girl Dolly who was of the tender age of twenty two!

Some years ago l looked up my Gt Aunt Dolly in Newton Abbott, she was living in a small terraced house with her blind sister, both in their eighties they were the only ones left in the street as it was being developed by a property company, they decided to stay and hold on for a better cash offer than the original one offered. She was not at all happy with my mother for she had cut off the allowance when Ayling died in the 1960’s, my mother felt that Dolly had married him only because of the prosperous family wine business and she thought that they would be comfortably off. Personally I don’t think so; talking with her it was obviously that they were genuinely in love, she told me in her lovely Devonian accent that one day in the factory where she worked the manager had called her into his office with the terrible news that Ayling had died on the lavatory! How undignified for a man l am sure l would have adored not despite, but because he was a character and as Terry-Thomas would have said – ‘a cad, bounder, a stinker in the first order!’. Their story reminded me of my favourite Charlie Chaplin film ‘Limelight’ where Chaplin playing a faded music hall artiste falls in love with a young ballerina played by Claire Bloom, poignant and touching.

How l wish l could have helped Gt Aunt Dolly and her sister l trust that they received the money they were fighting for and lived in the end in comfort that they truly deserved.

Now in the 20’ and 30’s under the guidance of my Gt Grandmother Mitchell’s prospered, she later left the entire business for Jack to manage but retained a keen interest in the day to day running.

Gt Uncle Jack was a great character and obviously and was a ‘ladies man’ but he eventually settled down and married my Gt Aunt Edith who was always called by her middle name of Irene. Their first home was in Cranbrooke Road in Westbury Park. The family were headline news when they were involved in a car crash; the date

is 1933 for l has the newspaper cuttings from the Evening Post and Western Daily Press headed ‘Bristol Family Escape from Blazing Car’. It reads.’ Only the prompt action of a motorist and a bus driver saved the lives of five people. The car skidded at the canal bridge at Whitminster, Gloucestershire and crashed into a telegraph pole. Fire broke out and the occupants of the car were trapped by the flames. A passing motorist courageously hurried to their rescue. Climbing through one of the doors he forced open the sunshine roof and pulled out the occupants. A bus driver poured water over the blazing engine and after a struggle, the fire was extinguished’ The driver was Jack, the others were his wife Irene, My Gt Aunt Gladys, my Gt Grandmother aged 86 and my Grandmother Francis.Fortunatly they only sustained light injuries but Irene suffering from concussion was taken to Gloucester hospital. If the accident had been fatal my mother would have inherited the business. Jack loved my mother very much and tried to involve her in the business. After leaving school she enrolled in Pitman’s School in Cheltenham Road learning to type and take shorthand. My mother worked at the Phoenix Assurance Company in Clare Street, it was there she met my father Richard, but again he was always called by his second name, Stanley. My father was her only boyfriend, his family farmed in Herefordshire, with two sisters and a brother Dad was the only family member to have won a grammar school scholarship. He was bright and had a gift with figures that led him to work first of all for Phoenix Assurance in Hereford being transferred to Bristol in 1936 to further his career, for when he retired Dad had reached the post of Chief Clark. He made money with stocks and shares not only for himself but for numerous friends that sought his advice; indeed he swelled the Mitchell family trust in later life. Due to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and fearing my father would be called to serve overseas my parents married on November the 4th at St Albans Church in Westbury Park. They held their wedding reception at Princes Restaurant close to the city centre. The wartime menu priced at three shillings and sixpence per guest consisted of the following, Cold Chicken and Ham or Cold York Ham and Ox Tongue, Green Salads and Pickles, Rolls and Butter, Sherry Trifle, Cheese and Biscuits, Lemonade, Orangeade and Coffee. I wonder if they had any alcohol!.Newly married they went to live with my grandmother at 71 Linden Road in Westbury Park, she had been diagnosed with cancer and during the Blitz Mum and Dad could not go to the local shelter but stayed in the house nursing her until she died on the 11th April 1953 of ovarian cancer aged 53 years. She was buried within the family plot at Greenbank cemetery, arriving back at Easton where the family first settled. Around that time my Grandfather George Alfred Gell died, by then widowed he had moved to 14 Lawrence Grove in Henleaze and was active as an air raid warden, a newspaper cutting proclaimed that he had a large attendance at his funeral that took place at Canford Cemetery.

My father was never called up, working at the office during the day he joined the Home Guard as became a sergeant. He was attached to a post in Westbury Park but later joined a specialist branch the British Resistance better known as the Home Guard Auxiliary Unit that were trained to go underground if the Nazi forces invaded. His life expectancy as a saboteur was roughly a week!. They were trained at Coleshill House in Wiltshire during the weekends. The Units were to hide in a veritable warren of holes, tunnels and burrows from where they would carry out discreet observations. At the end of the war for some reason he never collected the medals that he was dually awarded. An American camp was built in Westbury Park where the pub ‘Cock of the North’ is now situated and l remember my father was amused that the soldiers he met were sporting a new medal for just crossing the Atlantic!. The camp had its advantages as my father was often given gifts of food that was rationed or not available here. Two Canadian soldiers were billeted in Linden Road in what was an overcrowded house, just as the outbreak of the war was announced my Grandmothers sister Evie arrived from New Zealand with her two boys Frank and Geoffrey. Politely asking how long they intended to stay she announced “Well for a year, or so” and they did stay for nearly a year until the bombs began to drop on Bristol. My mother used to serve in some of the family wine shops in the evenings at 34 North View, Westbury Park and another 20 Princess Victoria Street, Clifton (now Orange and Lemons, a lovely children’s clothes shop).As a child l recall that a Mitchell’s sign painted onto the wall adjoining the North View shop, it was only painted out in the eighties. Other shops included 115 and 333 Wells Road, 74 East Street 243 North Street, Bedminster,137 Gloucester Road,23 Queens Road, Clifton, 9 Cotham Hill Cotham,224,416 Stapleton Road,599 Fishponds Road, 229,Church Road, Redfield 65 Stoke Hill Stoke Bishop 9 Canford Lane Westbury on Trym ,119 Regent Street Kingswood and 12a High Street,Keynsham.

Jack tried to persuade my mother to join him managing the business saying that she would inherit it all when he died if she accepted his offer, but for some reason she declined Mr Stirritt a butcher in North View had shop that had not changed since the 1930’s. l knew him in the 70’s and 80’s, his friend was my Gt Uncle Jack, one of his shop’s was opposite. Mr Stirritt’s shop reminded me of my friend actor Clive Dunn’s butchers shop in Dads Army, the entrance door had no glass just a wrought patterned iron frame set in the wood, the style was 1930’s and Mrs Stirritt sat in a wooden booth working as a cashier. He did not have a large selection of meat you just accepted the limited stock he carried, loyal customers dated from when he first opened Mr Stirritt told me numerous stories about Jack when l went in to buy meat, he only retired some years ago mainly due to Waitrose situated a few hundred yards away and his customers dying!.

A Court Case over the Sale of Empire Wine.

In 1933 a wine trade exhibition was held at the Colston Hall during August and September. Mitchell’s had a stall there promoting their own brand, Empire Wine. Members of the public were invited to taste the wine and vouchers and newspaper coupons were given out allowing the recipient to buy a bottle of Empire Wine for sixpence less than the usual price of three shillings and nine pence. Mitchell’s being the only Wine merchants in Bristol selling Empire Wine and had done so since 1926. Jack Mitchell had a number of complaints that the wines tasted at the Exhibition were not the same as being sold in their shops. My Gt Uncle suspected that Trubody Bros trading as The Wine Shop at 224 Stapleton Road were selling inferior wine purporting to be Mitchell’s Empire Wine. My grandmother went into The Wine Shop and asked for a quart bottle of Empire Wine. She produced one of Mitchell’s vouchers and said to the assistant “This wine of Mitchell’s is rather good, l tried it at the exhibition, she alleged the reply was ‘’Yes, very good”. An employee of Mitchell’s Mrs Violet Blanch Thompson was sent into the shop the next day; the assistant served her with the wine and accepted the Mitchell’s voucher. A young boy employed by Mitchell’s, Leslie Rudge was the next customer in the Wine Shop, He took a message written on an old cigarette carton on which was written an order for Mitchell’s Empire Wine 3s 9d,he produced a voucher and received the wine. The net was closing as finally a witness in the proceeding court case was a Mr Frederick J Brookman who usually bought his Empire wine in the West Street branch. Upon passing The Wine Shop one evening he called in and asked the lady assistant if this was a Mitchell’s shop, her reply was that yes it was. That was enough evidence for my Gt Grandmother and Jack and they went to seek legal advice from their solicitor. An action of interest was held at the Bristol Assize on the 15th and 16th September 1934 before Mt Justice Talbot. The action was brought by my Gt Grandmother then aged over eighty against Robert and Charlotte Trubody to restrain those selling wines under the family name of Mitchell in their shop. The case lasted two days and in the Judge granted an injunction restraining the defendants from selling Wines, or any liquor, in such a manner to create an erroneous belief that the Wines and liquors sold were Wines and liquors of the plaintiff. Mrs Ellen Anne Mitchell was entitled to costs and nominal damages of five shillings. What l find remarkable is that my Gt Grandmother at her extraordinary age fought a court case for two days defending the family name for on the shop logo was displayed ‘Mitchell’s for fine wines. My Gt Grandmother died on the 4th September 1935 aged 88 aged at home in ‘Hazeldean’, Chapel Green Lane she was working at the family business until three days before her death. The interment was at Greenbank Cemetery; the funeral service

was held at Redland Chapel, Cannon F.Norton officiated and well over three hundred people attended. All the family shops closed as well as the head office so all the staff could pay their tributes. By special request the 23rd Psalm was sung by the choir and also my Gt Grandmothers favourite hymn “The Day Thou Gavest”was a fitting tribute to an astute and fine businesswoman, not common in those days and ladies were expected to stay at home and raise the family and attend to the working husband, very non politically correct today !. In Greenbank cemetery there used to stand a large family memorial sadly it was deemed ‘unsafe ‘in the 1980’s and destroyed by the Bristol City Council.

My Gt Grandmothers sister hit the national press in 1939 for a faded Daily Express newspaper dated May 20th 1939 proclaimed Some Men Deserve Flogging, Tell Lady Astor from me- Gt Aunt Alice Mary Read then an eighty year old widow interrupted a Conservative meeting at Dorchester to call Lady Astor a fool for wanting the cat abolished. She was quoted as saying “l suppose l am what people call a ‘dear old lady’. But l still think there are brutes in the world that should be thrashed” Gt Aunt was described as a silver haired lady with twinkling eyes, with a cameo brooch pinned to her black silk and lace frock. She went onto say that she was a little sorry about her speech as it brought her right into the limelight but she meant what she had said. Alice went onto explain that she had been a widow for fifteen years and had spent all her leisure hours working for the Conservative party in Dorchester. Further explaining that as a child she remembered the family servants had told her that the garrotters were about and that her brothers and sisters had been scared stiff! The children were frightened that somebody was going to creep up behind them and throttle them. Garrotting was a form of robbery with violence by partly strangling their victim, it was common in England in 1862/3.An act was passed imposing flogging and penal servitude for the crime. Alice added that as a young child a smack in the right place did more to keep me good than anything else.

Her husband Charles was an hotelier, as a boy he attended Dorchester Grammar School and struck up a friendship with fellow pupil Frederick Treves who later became Sir Frederick Treves, Royal surgeon, they remained friends. Treves was in charge of The Elephant Man, the terribly deformed John Merrick and he famously cancelled the Coronation of King Edward V111 for he performed an appendectomy the day before but was so concerned about the Kings health he called a halt to the Coronation.

Charles Read ran the White Horse Hotel at Maiden Newton a former 17th century coaching inn mentioned in numerous Thomas Hardy novels including Tess of the D’Urbervilles it had a thatched roof, dormer windows an arched gateway and stone mullions. In the 1830’s the hotel was a stopping off point for The Royal Dorset Coach from Weymouth to Yeovil and Bristol, it was pulled down in 1912 and replaced by a modern brisk one. Charles Read then moved to manage the Royal Oak Hotel, Dorchester. He retired to stay in Dorchester until his death aged 71 years. Gt Aunt Alice died aged 85 at home in Great Western Road Dorchester, upon her death the press again told the story of her outburst against Lady Astor.

Gt Uncle Jack went onto run Mitchell’s after his mother’s death, and bought ‘The Bungalow’ at Flax Bourton a folly that boasted that every flowering tree and shrub that existed in England was planted in the extensive grounds. I can recall that my mother used to say that often while reading a newspaper Jack would get angry and say “Look this chap has died and left a small fortune but not a penny to his loyal servants, it’s disgraceful!” That statement would have a profound effect on the family.