Shop raids and cluttered pavements: East Finchley a century ago
By Frank Edwards
Greengrocers’ displays in the way, smash and grabs on the High Road, a spectacular visitor and a choice of entertainment. This is some of the news from East Finchley 100 years ago, as revealed in newspaper archives.
In January 1924 Mr and Mrs Alexander, greengrocers at 26 High Road, just south of Baronsmere Road, were summonsed for obstructing the pavement with a fruit bin. They had heavy rents, rates and taxes to pay, they told magistrates, and the practice of displaying produce for sale on the street was “winked at all over London.” In a novel further defence, they argued they could not obstruct the High Road because East Finchley was a “very deserted place.” The magistrates were unimpressed and fined them 10s. They were undeterred and three weeks later were fined again.
Jeweller’s raid
Next door, at 28 High Road, one night in March, someone threw a brick through the window of George Freeman’s jewellers and stole rings and necklaces worth £4. That same night police officers saw Arthur Johnson outside a jewellers in the Archway Road. Noticing the window was broken, Arthur’s leg was bleeding and his pockets bulging, they detained him. “You have got me fair,” said Arthur. He confessed to putting his foot through the glass and taking two watches before adding “I have just done another job about a mile and half down the road.”
Admitting responsibility for the East Finchley burglary improved the rate of solved crimes but may not have helped Arthur, an unemployed miner of No Fixed Abode, recently released from prison. In April, at the Middlesex Sessions, he was sentenced to 10 months hard labour. George Freeman’s problems also continued. Persons unknown broke his shop window twice more and stole items worth over £20.
What a spectacle!
Meanwhile, more people in East Finchley started wearing glasses, well probably. In February 1924 “London’s foremost scientific expert in eyesight testing”, a Mr Salmonson, set up in the Wesleyan Church Parlour on the corner of Park Road and the High Road, offering free eye tests and, if “absolutely necessary”, lenses and frames at a “nominal price”. Unsurprisingly, Mr Salmonson was a spectacles fan. If properly fitted, they “work wonders,” he promised and even “tend to gradually strengthen the vision.” Confessing alarm at the “numerous cases in East Finchley” of neglected eyesight he was “persuaded” to extend his stay to three weeks, before moving to Hendon and other London venues. He was a “pop-up” optician, long before that term was first coined.
Evening entertainment
Finally, in the early months of 1924, residents, when not acquiring glasses, could attend Holy Trinity Hall in Church Lane for a Dance and Whist Drive, sing with the East Finchley Choral Society at the Baptist Church in Creighton Avenue or even go to North Road schools (now Martin School) for a lecture on ‘Textile Fibres and How they are Dyed’.
