Friday 30 March 2007

Yellowley & Daglish - grocers from Newcastle

Shown here is the cover of a catalogue from October 1958 published by Yellowley & Daglish Ltd - wholesale grocers, provision merchants and confectioners from Newcastle upon Tyne.

The Company claims to be "The North's Leading Wholesalers", with "25 Fully Trained Representatives covering the Counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, North Yorkshire & North Lancashire".

It also shows the business has been "Established over 200 Years" - but I don't think that it has traded under this name for all of this time.

On 6 May 1856, William Daglish and Henry Yellowley agreed to take over the existing grocer's business run by William Yellowley in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle - so possibly the business was previously run by the Yellowley family. Both William and Henry Yellowley were already involved in the grocery business.

William Daglish was born in Morpeth, and was married twice. He died in 1902, aged 81. His only son, William Anthony Daglish (1854-1923), worked in the business - and I believe that William Anthony's sons may also have carried on in the business. I do not know if any Daglishes were involved in running the business at the time that the October 1958 catalogue was published.

The catalogue has 52 pages of listings and makes interesting reading. In among the lists are some little "words of wisdom", such as "Silence is one of the great arts of conversation".



Looking at some old Trade Directories*, in 1890 the business was still at 125 Pilgrim Street; in 1898 the address is 37 High Bridge, and in 1910 at 5 Elswick Court, an address it appears to have occupied for many years. The 1958 catalogue shows the address of the Head Office is shown as "YanD House", 961-973 Scotswood Road - and there is an address of an office in Belfast. I do not know what happened to the business after this date.

Any information about this long established business, and the involvement of this particular Daglish family, would be much appreciated.

* Local Trade Directories can be found in libraries - and there is a useful online resource Historical Directories, a project run by the University of Leicester.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was an employee at Yellowley and Daglish in 1957 when they were iocated at Scotswood Road. The. Managing DIrector at that time was Gordon Shanley. I never knew of an ofice in Belfast. The company moved to a new location in the Team Valley Trading Estate in Gateshead in approx 1959. I left the company in 1961.
Norma (Wight) Wagget

Unknown said...

My dad, Jim Anderson, also worked at Y&D on Scotswood Road in the 50s, first as a driver and later as transport manager. I believe his 2nd wife, Mary Smith also worked there. Unfortunately I have no idea what happened to the company as my dad died in 1960 and we moved away from the area.