FAMOUS SHOP CLOSED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

FAMOUS SHOP CLOSED.

"TAYLOR'S OF SOHO."

CAREER OF OVER A CENTURY.

Closing-time on an evening at Taylor'i provision store, Little Pulteney Street, Soho, London, was the 35,880 th time th< shutters had gone up—and it was the last, for a business romance that began 11! years ago had come to an end. Counter-hands were still being called "scalesmen" and the centuries-old term "egg-boy" was being applied to the youths and men at the egg counters. Mr. J. Palmer, the 82-year-old proprietor, who worked for the original Mr. Taylor, 6G years ago, bought the business for £4OOO, has sold his Crown lease to a firm ol chemists for a small fortune. Mr. Palmer had such cusomers as Lord Savile, Viscount Ullswater, famous as Mr. James Lowther, Speaker of the House of Commons, Jem Mace and Tom Savers, the two renowned pugilists, whom the crowd used to follow to the shop in the last century, while the Countess of Oxford and the Marquess of Reading were regular patrons until the last. It was a tradition of the Guards at St. James' Palace to deal at "Taylor's." "In the old days it was common for lords and ladies to be ordering provisions while, standing next to them, poor people were buying two-pennyworth of cheese or a single rasher of bacon," said Mr. Talmer recently. "I think I deserve a rest. I have been working since I was 10. 1 got my first job in a London provision shop when I was 16. My wages there were 3d a day, and although I sometimes worked 18 hours a day I was never paid more than 2s a week."