History (Part 1 / 3)

Towards the end of the century before last, an ambitious young man came to an expanding industrial town. Born in Wem, close to the North Wales Border, Robert James Stokes had begun his working life in 1887 when his father persuaded him to abandon a profitable newspaper delivery round to become apprenticed to J. F. Smith, a paint and varnish merchant in Yorke Street in Wrexham.

Incidently in the same year, 1887, Henry Eckford of Wem first cross-bred the first modern sweet pea. Thus Wem became the sweet pea capital of the world.

In 1894 he moved to Liverpool to work for R. R. Minton, firstly in Liverpool, then moving to their branch shop in Leeds. Now, in 1895, Robert James Stokes had been sent by Minton to open their new shop in Sheffield.

Apparently Robert found Sheffield a friendly place, and developed his social life by way of the Brunswick Weslyan Chapel, demolished in the 1950's but within a few hundred yards of the present tile shop. Through this he met his future wife, Sabina Himsworth. By now he must have made the decision to set up in business on his own account, for when they became engaged in 1897, they decided to delay the marriage until the enterprise was established. This was achieved two years later, in 1899, when he moved into premises at 62 Cambridge Street in the city centre to set up a small retail paint shop with help from his brother Walter.

With little money to spare the shelves were in fact stocked largely with empty tins. However, the illusion worked, the shop prospered, and in 1903 Robert opened a second in Packers Row, Chesterfield, introducing his eldest brother Frank to manage it.

Three years later trade had outgrown the small Cambridge Street shop, so Robert had new, larger, premises built further up the same street. In 1913 he bought his late master's business in Wrexham's Yorke Street, and had another brother, William, run that.

Growth was steady and secure, and as trade grew, Robert introduced his family into the enterprise; first brother Walter, then Frank, William, Herbert George, Thomas Henry, and in 1915, when war recruitment created severe staff shortages, his schoolboy son Edwin Goddard.