If time travel is ever invented you will find me nosing around Ruth Helena North's toy dealers in Edwardian Marlow. She was located in West Street at numbers 18-20 (modern numbering, currently Sainsburys).
Ruth was a Hampshire girl by birth spending her childhood in the fishing village of Itchen and the parish of St Mary Extra near Southampton.
Her father William was a fisherman and mariner but she may have had little memory of him because she was born approx 1866 and he was dead by the time of the 1871 census.
Her mother Mary Ann raised Ruth and her siblings alone. She supported them with occasional work as a charwoman and laundress.
Ruth worked as a servant before marrying fellow Hampshire resident James North in 1895.
By 1901 the couple (probably in 1896) along with Ruth's widowed mum Mary Ann Blizzard had moved to Marlow to take over the fancy goods repository of Ruth's unmarried elderly aunt Hannah Blizzard who had died. Poor Hannah burned to death after her clothes caught fire on the premises - you can read about that sad event here
Ruth officially "assisted" her husband in this business but as he was also a tobacconist and corn dealer Ruth was most likely the real one running the fancy goods side of things. A fancy goods repository was basically selling fun but non essential items such as you might treat yourself or someone else to. In Hannah's day the business was mainly a retailer of toys and sweets.
After James's death Ruth concentrated on toys. She died in 1939 having ran her toy shop right up until then.
*Hannah Bliz(z)ard and Mary Ann Blizzard share a memorial stone in Holy Trinity churchyard. Image here
See also this related post on relative John Adams toyseller and fancy goods man.
To find all mentions of a person on this blog please use the Person Index.
To find shops see the "Specific Shops, Streets, Etc" option on the menu.
©Marlow Ancestors. If reusing or quoting this research make sure you link here and credit this blog.
Sources:
GRO England and Wales Birth, Marriage and Death indexes online on their website. Accessed October 2020.
Death Certificate Hannah Blizard.
University of Leicester Special Collections online, Kelly's Directory of Buckinghamshire 1939.
England and Wales census 1851, 61, 71, 81, 1901 and Hampshire Parish records from Familysearch website, Intellectual Reserve Inc, run by the LDS. Accessed October 2020.
Gravestone transcription by blog member Kathryn Day.
South Bucks Standard Report 5th June 1896 [Hannah's death], paper at the British Library, accessed online via the BNA October 2020.
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