Basics

People

Properties

Can You Help?

Roads Off

Janet's Research

Sources & More

J H Harmer corner shop early 1900s

Lynda Lynch-Gibbs wrote in September 2025: I have a photograph of a relative outside an unknown shop and am trying to track down the location. The family (Coburn, Perry and Sparks) has links to Hayes and to Paddington amongst other places, but I haven’t managed to identify where this was taken. I ask here because one of the fruit and veg crates at the front of the photo is from H. Newman, Brentford Market.

The wording above the door is 'Late J.H. Harmer Jnr', so he had moved on. There are plenty of advertisements: Rowntree's Cocoa, Cadbury's Chocolate, Crawfords' Biscuits and, more locally, Chibnall's Bread, which was baked in Chiswick Mall. This cost tuppence three farthings old money, which AI suggests dates it to the early 1900s/1910s. Lynda also spotted Maconochie's meat tins which date it to around the first world war

It looks a bit fancy for Brentford and 74 High Street and 74 Ealing Road have been eliminated in any case, as has 74 Chiswick High Road. Searches for Harmer in Leicester University Historical Directories website, British Newspaper Archive and censuses were not successful; he may not have lived at the shop.

Notes

If you have any suggestions or ideas for what else to try, please get in touch.

Published November 2025