71-73 High Street

Two Watchmakers

The large spectacles that Briggs is recalling in his interview can be seen in a number of photos from this period, primarily because they protruded from the wall – it’s a shame that they haven’t survived the test of time as they would have made an eye catching addition to the shop front, which today looks pleasantly familiar to the original apart from several other missing adornments, including a large hanging lantern and the brass covered window base. William Arthur Weller was a watchmaker and jeweller who lived and worked from the shop in the early to mid 20C – he is listed at the property in the 1911 census and the 1939 register. Although Briggs thinks that the date would have been around 1945 when he remembers the shop, we know that Weller died in 1939 so, unless the shop maintained the name beyond his death, it was probably slightly earlier that he spotted those memorable spectacles.

When we consider that West Malling was a reasonably affluent area and that many of the residents would have had a number of clocks in their properties, William would have spent a considerable amount of time on his clock winding rounds. William took on his father’s profession who, also named William, worked from a shop in East Grinstead, where the local museum still retains a mantlepiece clock made by him in their collection.

Returning once again to those wonderfully oversized spectacles, we cannot be sure that it was actually William who was originally responsible for their introduction as he took over the property from another jeweller and watchmaker called Andrew Frederick William King. Andrew died suddenly in 1901 and it was probably then that William moved in. The circumstances of his death, near Wateringbury, were unusual enough to make the pages of several Kent newspapers:

Dover Chronicle – Saturday 26 October 1901
DEATH WHILE LAUGHING – A coroner’s jury at West Malling, Kent has returned a verdict of death from natural causes in the case of Mr. Andrew King a well-known jeweller. On Sunday last he was spinning for pike in the Medway, and on meeting a friend stopped to relate an amusing experience he had with live bait. He laughed heartily and suddenly fell dead. A post-mortem showed that Mr. King’s heart was five times the normal size and larger than that of a bullock. Death, it was stated, resulted from heart disease.
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Andrew King’s father was a brass founder based in Portsea but it is interesting to note that one of his uncles, Abraham, was a watchmaker so the trade was already established in the wider family. The last census that Andrew appears in (1901) shows him living in Thelmore House along with his wife Mary Eliza and two of their children, Gerald and Marjorie – their older daughter, Constance, was staying with Andrew’s father in Portsmouth at that time.

Having spoken to one of Andrew’s descendants, we have learnt the sad news that his wife Mary Eliza was pregnant with their youngest child at the time of his death so Andrew would never have met his youngest child and his untimely passing would lead to the break-up of the family unit as Mary didn’t have the financial means to look after all four of their children. Along with her two youngest children, Marjorie and Frederica, Mary moved to Devon to live with a friend and took up a job as a teacher.  Her two other children returned to Portsmouth to live with Andrew’s family and although the children would see each other and keep in contact, their stay in West Malling was the last time they all lived together.

John Shrosbery

Following his move from London to West Malling, 71-73 would be the second of three High Street properties that John occupied before he died at the age of 92 whilst living at Arundel House. More information about John and his family can be found on the page dedicated to Arundel House by clicking here.

John English

Born in Yalding in 1784, we do not know when John moved to West Malling but we do know from the following newspaper listing that it would have been at some point before the first census records of 1841:

Maidstone Journal – Tuesday 01 October 1839
The following valuable FREEHOLD PROPERTY will be SOLD by AUCTION, in 3 Lots, at the Swan Inn West Malling, on WEDNESDAY, the 16th day of October instant, at two o’clock in the afternoon precisely,
By Messrs. Mandy and Son.
Lot 2-A substantial well-built brick DWELLING HOUSE, in the High Street of the town West Malling, with Grocer’s Shop, to which good trade is attached, buildings, Garden and appurtenances, in the occupation of John English, grocer.
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Sadly, we are unable to identify where the property listed above was but it is likely that John moved his family and business to 71-73 High Street at the time of this sale where he remained until his death in 1876.