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A FAMILY BUSINESS - SUTERS LIMITED - 1950s by Richard Ensor Please note that if click on some of the images on this page they will enlarge Suters on film in Uxbridge
NATIONAL SERVICE AND A NEW GENERATION FOR THE SUTERS STORES By 1950 there were three members of the next Suter generation who were about to enter the family business. Of the four "second generation" Suter Directors none of Arthur's three children would be joining. His daughter's Elizabeth (Su) and Ruth were ineligible as they were girls and George was not interested and wanted to become a farmer. Both Clarence's boys, Tom and David were of the correct sex and thus eligible! Tom completed two years military service in 1949. He started in the Armoured Corps but having been selected for officer training was commissioned into the RASC and took part in the Berlin Airlift as a supply officer. Tom enjoyed the army and would have liked to stay on but his father wanted him in the family company and in 1950 Tom started to learn the retail business prior to entering Suters as an assistant manager in 1953 on or about the age of 25. Tom's brother, David, was two years younger and would be due to join in 1955. In the meantime he obtained deferment of military service in order to study for a diploma in textiles at Leeds University and started national service on the completion of his course in 1950.
1954 - LATE NIGHTS, AND NEW ARRIVALS
While burning the midnight oil Arthur was, also, planning for the future. 'Suters' received its first new family entrant in 1954 when Clarence Suter's elder son Tom finished his training and joined the company as an assistant manager. It also received an entrant of another kind when a London Transport 607 route trolleybus crashed through one of the front plate glass windows following a collision with a single decker bus. Two people were hurt. A youth was injured when he was knocked through the window into the store and the conductor of the trolleybus was also injured.
1955 - Planning application to re-build Slough Store - Photos taking internally of the shortage of space are shown here 1955 - The Annual Suters Dinner and Dance The newspaper report emphasised that Suters had become part of the scene at both Slough and Uxbridge. The company solicitor Mr Turberville Smith, who had an office in Uxbridge, replied to the toast of the "visitors and guests". His firm had acted since 1924 and would continue to do so until the expansion of the company made it necessary to go to solicitors in London for all but local matters. Mr Buggins, who had been with the firm for 20 years, replied to the toast to the staff and when a gold watch was presented to Mr Sumner for 25 years service the report noted that he was the first person employed when Suters took over Wm Coad Limited in 1929.
Shop Licences, Uxbridge HC Deb 29 July 1952 vol 504 c119W (Source Hansard - UK Parliament) 117. Mr. Beswick asked the Minister of Works why a licence has been issued for the fitment of another shop front on premises within the Uxbridge Metropolitan station for a firm of tobacconists who already have one shop within 20 yards. Mr. Eccles No licence was necessary as I understand the work was carried out on property to which the free limit of £500 for railways applies. 118. Mr. Beswick asked the Minister of Works if he is aware that, within the last 18 months to two years, licences have been issued to five different traders within the High Street, Uxbridge, to take out old shop windows and install new ones, and that a licence was issued to another firm to build seven new shop window fronts; and how these cases of modernisation differ from that of Messrs. Suters, Limited, High Street, Uxbridge, who were not allowed to complete, by the fitment of one window, a scheme started in 1936. Mr. Eccles The five licences were issued on change of user where the old shop front was unsuitable, and were all for much smaller amounts than that required by Messrs. Suters. I have no knowledge of the particular case in which a licence was granted for seven shop fronts. Messrs. Suters, Ltd., have already a shop front on the main street and I do not feel justified in licensing another at the back. (Frank Beswick - David Eccles) ELECTIONS AND A CHARTER FOR UXBRIDGE {See also Arthur Suter page}
One of Arthur's first duties as a member of the new council was to attend the presentation by the Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra, of the Charter of Incorporation of Uxbridge as a Borough.
1956
There is a programme from the 1956 Staff Dance at the Castle Hotel, Windsor (below). Dancing was, as in the previous year, to Jack Marshall and his band and this year the meal consisted of soup, roast chicken, peach melba and cheese and biscuits.
1957
1958 At Suters, two more members of the younger generation were appointed to the Board making seven family members in all. Frank Suter's elder son Tony and Clarence Suter's second son David were both elected Directors on 28th August having served for two years in the business as assistant managers. They joined at a time of change in the Slough High Street. A report in the local paper outlined what was proposed and described. … an impressive six-storey office block surrounded by two-storey shop premises with a gay little café, serving morning coffee at Continental-style striped umbrellas ….all this would be to the tinkling music of a fountain
The planning department commented that one virtue of the scheme was that it covered land mainly in one ownership which would make the development more cost effective. This would not have come as much of a surprise to the Suters Directors as Suters Ltd was that owner and they company was already heavily engaged in negotiations concerning the development generally and, more particularly, the extent to which their own preferred plans for a very extensive rebuilding of the Slough store would be accommodated within the overall scheme. 1959 - THE MAYOR AND MAYORESS OF UXBRIDGE {See also Arthur Suter page} Arthur Suter was one of the nine Aldermen of the Borough of Uxbridge and, in 1959, became the fifth Mayor of the Borough.
Arthur Suter was invested as Mayor in late May or early June and two photos show him at the formal Council meeting. In one he is with the retiring Mayor, Councillor Mrs Dubberley, and in the other about to take the chair at the meeting. He is seated below in full ceremonial robes, for a formal portrait photo and in another can be seen enjoying a joke while Dorothy Suter receives a bouquet.
Other photos below show Arthur with a gentleman in a legal wig, and with John Poole who was Town Clerk and soon to retire.
and below with Lionel Kirby who - from his chain of office - may have been President of the Uxbridge Rotary Club
In August Arthur Suter can be seen opening the Fassnidge Old People's Home (below) and in November attending a dinner for John Poole.
Below stills from old Uxbridge film showing Mayor Arthur Suter leaving RAF Uxbridge, Inspecting the marching and RAF Uxbridge airmen marching past Burtons opposite Suters.
©Richard Ensor - January 2005 and additional material Tom Suter 2020 ____________________________________________________________________ Another local Slough retailer advertising in the Thorpe House School, Gerrards Cross magazine The "Omnibus" July 1958 - Bennetts
Removal and Storage Service at Suters See also: Further Miscellaneous Facts and Information from the Suters era at Uxbridge and Slough
History of Suters Ltd - 1960s Continued Here ____________________________________________________________________ ©Philip Suter - December 2013
____________________________________________________________________ Source of images, unless otherwise stated - Suter family archives |
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View
this film Here - Courtesy of Tony Suter
In
the image of Suters Uxbridge rear windows, shown above (Christmas
shopping) there is a bike by the round window. This enlargement
shows it more clearly as the bike that was used by Mr Charlie
Aldin who was in charge of the despatch area to the left of
the bike for many years.
