Ann Walford was one of two Gloucestershire sisters to marry into the Allday family of Birmingham. In 1823 she married wireworker Joseph Allday, a year after her sister Sarah had married Joseph's brother Thomas, a butcher, then of the Old Lamb House on Bull Street.
In 1831, when her husband entered early public infamy (and gaol) as the libel-prone editor of The Argus, Ann took to the letters pages of the Birmingham Journal (with whose authors the Alldays had a long-running feud), proving herself highly literate and fearless in the conduct of a spirited, if perhaps legally and factually dubious, defense of Joseph's reputation.
The public standing of the Alldays seems to have recovered from the Argus scandal by 1847*, when the following notice appears in Aris's Birmingham Gazette:
The bill of fare was introduced as:
* This is the earliest reference I can find to an eatery with an Allday name attached, somewhat later than Walter Showell's estimate.
Subsequent advertising refined the branding and directions:
A few months on, the establishment appears to be doing well, with Ann focusing her publicity on the demand for tripe:
Offers now included:
The "Corn Exchange Dining Rooms" seems the name most firmly attached to the business throughout its tenure, but Ann maintains a separate strand of advertising, perhaps aimed at a different set of customers, in which she runs "Allday's Celebrated Tripe and Cow Heel Establishment".
The Alldays being primarily a family of butchers, farmers and cattle dealers, Ann no doubt had easy access to a plentiful supply of meat for her wares, and provided a useful outlet for the extended family's businesses, not least the butcher's shop of her brother-in-law Thomas and sister Sarah on Bull Street (by then at number 22).
1850 saw an opportunity for expansion:
Number 30 (soon expanded to include number 31) is noted as
... so I guess somewhere around where WHSmith would be now.
Among the facilities afforded by the new premises:
The 1850s were the heyday of Joseph Allday's political career, during which he became a leading popular, if divisive, figure on Birmingham Town Council. I imagine Joseph's public position and connections will have been invaluable in helping establish the popularity of Ann's dining rooms with the 'great and good' of the town that Showell remarks upon.
With the close of the 1850s came a decline in the fortunes of the Alldays, and Joseph in particular, perhaps along with increasing competition from the likes of John Suffield's dining rooms in Union Passage and Benson's in Bull Street. With the family finances ailing, Ann announced her retirement due to ill health in 1860. The dining rooms were put up for sale, and their running passed on to Ann's long-time assistant, Miss Bartlett**.
Retaining the name of the "Corn Exchange Dining Rooms", the establishment was by 1862 being run by G.E. Huber***.
Herr Huber moved on in 1864, and the dining rooms entered their final incarnation as "Kate Simpson's Refreshment Saloon".
In 1866, Kate Simpson announced her retirement due to ill health, and the Union Street dining rooms closed as an eating establishment for the last time.
** Emily Sarah Bartlett (~1830 - 1869), I think.
*** Georg Ernst Huber of Württemberg (~1834 - ???)
Walter Showell's designation as the "first restaurant" may be an exaggeration, but Mrs. Allday's was clearly, for a time, a culinary and social landmark in mid-19th century Birmingham.
The above, a strand of research from my family tree that I thought might be of more general interest.
Principal sources:
- Advertisements from Aris's Birmingham Gazette courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive (transcriptions, and errors in such, my own).
- Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham: A History and Guide, Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
- Assorted genealogical records on Ancestry
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