22 Moor Street
Thomas Roughley - Basketmaker
In the 1860s 22 Moor Street was the workplace and home of Thomas Roughley, basket maker.
The availability of good quality, competitively priced basketware for the storage and transport of agricultural produce was important to the local economy. In 1869 Thomas Roughley was advertising his potato hampers for 19 shillings per dozen. He had stiff competition, as Henry Bentham, also making baskets in Moor Street, was advertising potato hampers and wiskets (round or oval bottomed baskets) to local farmers for a similar price.
In 1881 Thomas Roughley, who at this time was employing 5 men and one boy, made an announcement in the Ormskirk Advertiser to say he would be leaving the shop at 22 Moor Street to continue as a basket maker "up the yard behind the present shop" and this is where he based his business until July 1894 when he decided to retire.
The Ormskirk Advertiser carried an inventory of his "stock-in-trade" which was to be auctioned off, providing an interesting insight into the workings of a basketmaking business, a trade which changed little over the centuries. Included in the sale were two basket makers' boilers, each eight feet long, a shop counter and sign board and four cwt of bunched willows. Other stock to be auctioned included two dozen Southport Baskets, a popular style of flat bottomed, lidded basket which was a speciality of some basket makers, five butter baskets, five butcher or bakers' spelk baskets and 11 dozen besoms, a kind of broom made from a bundle of twigs tied to a stout pole.
On his retirement Thomas and his wife went to live in Long Lane, Aughton where he died aged 81 in March 1900.
Basketmaking in Ormskirk was continued by two of Thomas' sons; Henry had a business in Southport Road, although he eventually moved to Birmingham and John had premises in Church Street until his death in 1922. John was fondly remembered in 1957 by the then editor of the Ormskirk Advertiser as "Old Round Hat" due to the fact that he always wore a round cloth hat whilst he was working.
20 Moor Street
The Banks family 1830s-1906
James Banks - Watchmaker and Postmaster
Ormskirk born watchmaker James Banks set up his workshop at 20 Moor Street soon after marrying Jane Pye in 1837. The couple went on to have 9 children, only losing their youngest child, Evangeline born in 1859 and dying in 1865. Jane had been having babies for 20 years but she still outlived husband James, who died in March 1871. Before his death he had taken on an additional role as Postmaster in his shop. Jane and their sons John and Edward all worked for the business, John as an apprentice watch finisher and post office clerk and Edward as a Telegraphist from 1870 when inland telegraph companies were nationalised as part of the General Post Office. Edward Banks would most likely have sent and received the first telegraph in Ormskirk. He moved to Halifax where he rose to the position of Superintendent of the Post Office.
John Banks and Elizabeth Warburton Banks
Where did Ormskirk residents get their teeth attended to in the 1880s and 90s? One option was to attend the regular surgeries held at 20 Moor Street, home and business premises of the Banks family. In 1884 W. B. Burrows, surgical dentist was in attendance every Thursday afternoon, a day clearly chosen to coincide with Ormskirk's busy market. By 1891 L.H. Robinson of the Anglo-American Dental Company was using 20 Moor Street as his surgery. This company claimed to have the largest dental practice in the world and their speciality was the adjustment of artificial teeth "without plates or wires". As late as 1903 dental services were advertised at the address, this time by E. J. Dalton, of Crosby who attended Mrs. Banks' premises. One of the secrets of the success and longevity of the Banks family business seems to be their willingness to diversify when necessary.
We have already seen how the family became postmasters and telegraph operators in the 1870s and the rental of space to dental surgeons seems to be another example of their adaptability.
James Banks, who had run the family business since the late 1830s, died in 1871 and his son, John took over. Perhaps an example of John's desire to improve and expand the business came in 1873 when he was granted permission by the Ormskirk Local Board of Health to replace a bow window with a new one.
Although activities such as watchmaking, dealing in electro plate and repairing sewing machines continued to be the core business, by 1877 James Banks was also advertising rugs for sale including "A large assortment of Iceland skins suitable for carriage rugs". In 1885 he was awarded the contract to wind and tend clocks in the Ormskirk Union Workhouse for the year and by 1887 he was the local agent for Sun Fire Insurance.
John Banks died in February 1896 aged 49 and his widow Elizabeth Warburton Banks (nee Rolison), originally from St. Asaph in Flintshire, continued in business at 20 Moor Street as a tobacconist and shopkeeper. Mrs Banks' tobacconist shop made the local news in 1899 when eleven year old William Champion, a sea captain's son from Liverpool, was charged with stealing 2 shillings from her till; he received six strokes with a birch rod to dissuade him from a life of crime. In 1901 Mrs. Banks wrote a letter to Ormskirk Urban District Council in defence of the clock tower which she considered to be in a bad condition. In her later years Elizabeth Banks moved to Liscard, Wallasey and in 1906 J.L. Clucas, seed merchants, took over 20 Moor Street.