Allday family, jewellers and chain makers of Warstone Lane

[Victor Romeiro]

Hello — I’m trying to work out the Allday family of the Jewellery Quarter, and I’d be grateful for help.


My interest is in Henry Allday (1833–1891), of Stanley Villa, Livingstone Road, Handsworth, a gold and silver chain manufacturer in Warstone Lane, and in Harry Albert Allday (1858–1909), of Four Oaks. The firm was trading as Henry Allday & Son by June 1883, and Harry Albert was executor to Henry’s estate in 1891 — but I have not found a single document that states the relationship between them. I have not assumed it.


I am also aware of two other Alldays in the same trade and the same street, and I am not assuming any connection: John Allday, jeweller, of 8–9 Warstone Lane; and a Harry Allday who was in partnership as Horton & Allday at 195 Warstone Lane, and who continued alone after Alfred George Horton died in September 1885.


What I have been able to document, in case it saves anyone repeating it:

• 1867 — London Gazette, 19 July: dissolution of Allday and Lawrence, gold and silver chain manufacturers, 158 Warstone Lane, signed by Henry Allday and Philip Henry Lawrence, the trade continuing on the same premises by Henry Allday alone.
• 1875 — Francis White & Co.: Allday Hy., 130 Warstone Lane, under four chain and swivel headings.
• 1879 — Post Office Directory: Allday Henry, jeweller, 158 Warstone Lane; and in the private residents, Allday Hy., Stanley Villa, Livingstone Road.
• 1883 — the Birmingham Assay Office kindly searched their register for me this month: the mark H·A&S was first registered on 8 June 1883 to Henry Allday & Son, manufacturing jeweller, 120 Warstone Lane.
• 1896–97 — Peck’s: Allday Henry & Son (chains), 130 Warstone Lane. John Allday & Son appear immediately above, at 8 Warstone Lane.
• Probate: Henry Allday, jeweller, late of Warstone Lane, died 25 March 1891, Harry Albert Allday executor; Harry Albert Allday of Four Oaks died 1909.
• FreeBMD gives Harry Albert’s birth at Birmingham in the March quarter of 1858, and a marriage at West Bromwich in September 1883.

Two things I’d welcome help with:

1. Does anyone have the Alldays of the Jewellery Quarter worked out — in particular whether Henry and Harry Albert were father and son, and whether John of 8–9 Warstone Lane was related to either?
2. Does anyone hold Birmingham directories between about 1880 and 1896? Those years are missing from the Leicester digitised collection and I have found no free copy. Any Allday entry in that span would help.

My interest began with a silver Albert chain of 1890 bearing the H·A&S mark, which is what sent me to the Assay Office; I’m happy to post photographs if they’d be of interest.


Many thanks.

Victor.

 

[Astoness]

hi and welcome...on the 1861 census henry allday is living with his wife sarah he is aged 27 occupation silversmith with them are 3 children one of them is harry A allday aged 3 so i think its safe to assume that the harry A allday executor was henrys son..

on the 1841 census henry is aged 7 living with parents william and mary...also on the census is henrys older brother john aged 12 who is a jeweller so hopefully this has helped you make the connections

lyn

 

[Pedrocut]

The 1895 Kelly’s gives at 8 and 9 Warstones Lane, Allday Jnr & Sons.

At 158 gives Allday Harry & Son.

 

[Pedrocut]

1883 Kelly’s gives 8/9 as Allday John & Son. [ In 1885 no9 Warstones Lane is advertised as John Allday & Son, and named the Colonial Works]

At 158 Allday Henry.

 

[mikejee]

Here are all the ones I have
1880
Allday John & Sons, jewellers, 9 Warstone lane
Allday Henry, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
1882
Allday John & Sons, jewellers, 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1883
Allday John & Sons, manufacturers of lockets, bracelets, brooches , earings etc, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1884
Allday John & Sons, manufacturers of lockets, bracelets, brooches , earings etc, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1888
Allday John & Sons, manufacturers of lockets, bracelets, brooches , earings etc, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry & Son, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1890
Allday John & Sons, manufacturers of lockets, bracelets, brooches , earings etc, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry & Son, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1892
Allday John & Sons, manufacturers of lockets, bracelets, brooches , earings etc, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry & Son, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1895
Allday John & Son, jewellers, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry & Son, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane
1896
Allday John & Son, jewellers, 8 & 9 Warstone lane
Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday
Allday Henry & Son, jeweller, 158 Warstone lane
Horton & Allday, jewellers, 195 Warstone lane

 

[Victor Romeiro]

Thank you all — this has moved things on a great deal in one evening.

@Astoness , the 1841 and 1861 households were exactly what I needed. The 1841 entry settles that John of 8–9 Warstone Lane was Henry’s older brother, which I had seen asserted but never documented, and 1861 puts Harry A in the house at three years old.

@Pedrocut , thank you for checking 1883 and 1895 independently — and the 1885 advertisement for no. 9 as John Allday & Son, the Colonial Works, is a detail I had from nowhere else.

@mikejee , the run from 1880 to 1896 is the most useful thing anyone could have given me, and I’m conscious of how much work it was to set out. Those years are missing from the Leicester digitised collection and I had found no free copy anywhere, so that span was simply blank to me. It also does something I hadn’t expected: seeing “Allday Harry, jeweller, see Horton & Allday” sitting beside “Allday Henry, jeweller, 158 Warstone Lane” in 1882, 1883 and 1884 separates two men I had been unable to tell apart.

Since posting I also found the 1881 census, which answers my first question outright: Henry Allday, 47, head, gold & silver chain maker, Handsworth, with Harry A Allday, 23, single, gold & silver chain maker, entered as Son. RG11/2835, folio 128, page 21. So the relationship I said I couldn’t document is now documented, and both men were in the same trade two years before the firm registered its mark as “& Son”.

That run has also sharpened a puzzle I’d like to put to you, because I suspect the answer is obvious to anyone who knows the street.

Kelly’s gives 158 consistently, 1880 through 1896. But two other compilers give 130: Francis White & Co. in 1875, under four separate headings — gold chain, watch guard and fancy chain, swivels, and watch keys and seals — and Peck’s in 1896–97, which lists “Allday Henry & Son (chains), 130 Warstone Lane”. Peck’s and Kelly’s therefore disagree in the same year. And the Birmingham Assay Office, who searched their register of sponsors’ marks for me this month, give the address at the 1883 registration as 120 Warstone Lane, which they have since confirmed in writing.

What strikes me is that the split is not random. Every entry giving 130 is a chain, swivel or seal entry. Every entry giving 158 is a jeweller entry. That made me wonder whether the firm held two premises on the lane — a front or office at 158 and a chain works at 130 — with compilers recording whichever suited the section they were building, and whether the 120 in the assay register might be a slip of one digit for 130, since a sponsor’s mark would naturally be registered at the works.

So, if your volumes have street sections: who is listed at 120 and at 130 Warstone Lane? If an Allday appears at either, that would settle it. If other firms occupy both throughout, my idea is wrong and I’d rather know.

One smaller thing. Pedrocut, your 1895 Kelly’s reads “Allday Harry & Son” at 158, where mikejee’s reads “Allday Henry & Son”. I ask because the London Gazette of 11 May 1883 names a “Harry Allday” of 158 Warstone Lane as trustee in a bankruptcy — and your own entries show a different Harry Allday at 195, with Horton & Allday. Does the firm at 158 ever appear in print as Harry rather than Henry?

With thanks again — this was generous of you.

Victor.

 

[pjmburns]

1895 and 1896 Kelly's directory does not have 120 or 130 listed in street section. It jumps from 114 to 148 and Allday is at 158 but as Hy (could be Henry or Harry I suppose)


but names section has "see Horton and Allday" with entry reading



The street listing for 8 & 9 seems to be Jn (presumably John)

 

[pjmburns]

1888 directory gives it as

 

[pjmburns]

Not sure if you have seen this

 

[mikejee]

Experience has shown three things. Firstly that Kellys did not always list every address of a company. Sometimes, if they had a main office and a factory, then the main office only was listed. Secondly, somerimes firms rented out part if tgeir premises. Thirdly, oerhaps due to lazyness on tge part of those doing the surveying or compiling. Wuth regard to the last, there are iccasions where in one year a numbwred building is one side of a junction, and another year the opposte side, or occasions where a company is listed in company list at ab address, but not ib street list, or visa versa

 

[Victor Romeiro]

@pjmburns — that’s the answer, and thank you for going to the street section. It hadn’t occurred to me to look there.

It also matches something I’d seen and wrongly dismissed. I had swept the whole of Warstone Lane in the 1879 Post Office Directory and listed every number that appears: 1–48, then 70–113, then 149 onwards. I put the gap down to poor OCR on my copy. Your 1895 and 1896 street sections jumping from 114 to 148 say otherwise — the same gap, seventeen years apart, in two different compilers. So 120 and 130 were not addresses on that lane at all.

That disposes of my works-and-office idea, and I’m glad to have it disposed of. Those figures aren’t two premises; they’re wrong.

And it clears up the Harry/Henry divergence between posts 3 and 5 — if the 1895–96 entry reads “Allday Hy.”, then Pedrocut and mikejee were reading the same abbreviation and expanding it differently. For what it’s worth, the 1879 Post Office Directory settles that one: the same man appears as “Allday Hy., Stanley Villa, Livingstone Road” in the private residents and as “Allday Henry, Stanley Villa, Livingstone Road” in the court directory. Hy. is Henry.

Since you’ve all given me so much, here are my own extracts, in case they’re of use — these are years and compilers that don’t overlap with the Kelly’s run.

1867, Post Office Directory. The firm’s own description, and the earliest address I have: “Allday & Lawrence, jewellers & manufacturers of gold & silver guard & albert chains, swivels, seals, keys &c. 158 Warstone lane.” It appears again at 158 under Gold Swivel Manufactrs and under Watch Key Mnfrs.—Gilt. The London Gazette of 19 July 1867 records the partnership dissolved from 28 June, with the trade continuing on the same premises by Henry Allday alone.

1875, Francis White & Co., vol. 2. Here is the problem in its original form — “Allday Hy. 130 Warstone ln”, under four separate headings: Gold &c. Chain Mnfrs, Watch Guard and Fancy Chain Mnfrs, Swivel Manufacturers, and Watch Key and Seal Makers. Four entries, one number, and the number doesn’t exist.

1883, Birmingham Assay Office. Their register of sponsors’ marks, as supplied to me this month: “‘HA&S’ = Henry Allday & Son, manufacturing jeweller, 120 Warstone Lane, Birmingham; first registered with Birmingham Assay Office on 8th June 1883.” I queried the number with them and they confirmed the register reads 120. Which, given your street sections, means their 1883 clerk wrote down an address that wasn’t there either.

1896–97, Peck’s. “Allday Henry & Son (chains) 130 Warstone lane”, with Allday John & Son immediately above at 8. Note that Kelly’s gives 158 for the same year — so the two directories disagree, and Peck’s may simply have inherited White’s 1875 figure.

1914, Bennett’s. “Allday H & Son, 156 Warstone Lane”, under Gold Chain Manfrs. 156 does exist, so that one may be a genuine move a couple of doors along, or another slip — I don’t know.

So the picture I now have is 158 Warstone Lane from 1867 through to at least 1896, with the 130s and the 120 being errors of three separate compilers, one of which was an assay office. That isn’t what I expected to conclude, and I’d not have got there without the street sections.

Victor.

 

[pjmburns]

I did think that sometimes only one lot of premises might be listed.
120 and 130 probably existed but may have been an office or not the main manufactory premises. What was listed was perhaps the premises they expected buyers to visit?

 

[Pedrocut]

As an aside, November 1892.

 

[Victor Romeiro]

I forgot 1 picture. Sorry.

1867_PostOffice_Watch_Key_Mnfrs_Gilt_158

 

[pjmburns]

I doubt the Assay Office has it wrong. As I said before I would think that address was the office where paperwork was done. The listed address being the premises of manufacture.

 

[Pedrocut]

Back of 8 Warstones Lane, October 1884.

 

[Pedrocut]

“Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

Always get my Harry’s and Henry’s mixed up.

 

[pjmburns]

1906 rates book 158 Warstone Lane

 

[pjmburns]

1883 eroll Henry at 130

 

[pjmburns]

130 definitely existed

 

[Victor Romeiro]

1906 rates book 158 Warstone Lane
View attachment 232633

View attachment 232627

Thanks for all the information!

The 1882 advertisement settles it — and settles it against what I said in post 11. You and mikejee were right that absence from a street section proves nothing, and I was wrong. A firm paying to print “Apply, Henry Allday, 130, Warstone Lane” in the Birmingham Mail is about as conclusive as an address gets, and the 1883 electoral roll puts him there too. The number 130 existed, the firm evidently held more than one property on the lane, and White’s and Peck’s were recording it correctly all along. The one number still unaccounted for is 120, which is what the Assay Office register gives for the 1883 registration. I suspect it is another of the firm’s addresses, but I’ve found nothing yet that mentions it — if it happens to appear in any of the volumes you have, I’d be glad to know.

The 1906 rate book is the one I’d like to ask you about, because there’s something in it I can’t account for. Henry Allday died on 25 March 1891 — the probate calendar gives the date and the Harborne Herald obituary you posted confirms it. So the occupier entry reading “Harry Albert Allday and Henry Allday” in 1906 can’t be him.

My own guess is that the line is recording the firm rather than two living men — the business was Henry Allday & Son and traded under that name until at least 1948, so writing out both names would just be the trading style spelled out. But I don’t know how these books were kept.

So: did Birmingham rate books of that period carry occupier names forward from year to year, so that a name could persist long after the man had gone? And is there any later Henry Allday in the family that you’ve come across? I have ten children for Henry and none of them is a Henry.

One other thing struck me in that entry, and I’d not have guessed it: the owner of 158 is John Allday. So by 1906 the two Allday jewellery businesses on that lane were landlord and tenant. Nothing else I’ve found says that.

Thanks again!

Victor.

 

[pjmburns]

I haven't found any reference to 120 so far. If I do I'll post it.
I don't know much about the Rates books - I just posted it as the premises were owned by John Allday.

 

[Astoness]

just to quote what you said earlier...

"I have ten children for Henry and none of them is a Henry."

if i have the correct family henry and sarah married in 1853.. on the 1861 census their eldest child is sarah born 1856 so it could be possible that they did have an earlier child named henry who died very young

lyn