Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 28 March 2013

“Technical Memories (Part 49) –Store Pressures”

“On the one hand, is the great store with a large staff, a complex organisation and detailed systems; on the other, is the small business with the individual proprietor and a few assistants. In the imperative need for more trade, for ‘volume’, the departmental store, the multiple shop, and the mail order business are extending their activities into the most remote quarters of the land, and the fear is sometimes expressed that the day of the small business is over” (S A Williams, London).

In the last of the papers at the Irish Technical Education Association Congress, held in the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute on 13 June 1930, Mr S A William, Principal, School of Retail Distribution, London gave a paper on the changing nature of retail distribution: Education for retail business was a new development and presented several important issues for consideration. William’s remarks were set in a context of the rise in shopping malls in the United State and the continuing rise of the department store in Britain.

Modern “car-friendly” strip malls developed from the 1920s, and shopping malls corresponded with the rise of suburban living in many parts of the Western World, especially the United States, after World War II. From early on, the design tended to be inward-facing, with malls following theories of how customers could best be persuaded in a controlled environment. Similar, the concept of a mall having one or more ‘anchor store’ or ‘big box stores’ was pioneered early, with individual stores or smaller-scale chain stores intended to profit from the shoppers attracted by the big stores. In Britain, the department store was the pioneer of mass consumerism. It was the product of an enormous movement in the class system with the rapid nineteenth-century expansion of the commercial and industrial middle class. Many stores were dependent on low mark-ups and high turnover. In 1900, the department store sector had between one and two per cent of the total retail trade in Britain rising to between three and four per cent by 1920 and c.11 per cent of all sales by 1947. Despite the uncertainties of war, department stores in Britain rose from 175-225 stores in 1914 to about 475-525 in 1938 (William Lancaster, 1995, The Department Store, A Social History).

On the rise of the department store, S Williams noted in his Cork paper that the large organisation had many advantages. It possessed great purchasing power; it had developed into a first class organisation of buying, selling and despatching goods. He argued that experience showed that there was still room for the well-managed single shop, with a good variety of the particular merchandise it stocked. It was less crowded than the multiple shop. The great asset of the single shop he noted “is its individuality and its personal interest in the customer, both of which make a great appeal to many people. In spite of the growth of the large store, the number of people engaged in the small business is still greatly in excess of those employed in large organisations”.

Williams described that it was not usually practical to establish separate schemes of training for the employee of the department store or single shop. He felt that the wide field of knowledge and practice was common to both large and small organisations, with common and broad principles of retailing and of general application. Williams divided the work of retail distribution into four main groups-merchanising, which entailed providing for the consumer the right merchanise; publicity, presenting the shop and the merchandise in such a way that would build goodwill and bring shoppers to buy; shop or store management, ensuring proper service by means of intelligent selling, a comfortable shop and efficient delivery, and financial control, recording financial transactions and control expenditure.  “These functions are performed in every retail business, the only difference between the large and small organisations being that in the latter, one individual may carry out several functions”;

Williams advocated for store assistants to have a course of education, educating them in the experiences of others and enabling them to profit from the best examples of modern retailing; “It is quite possible to arrange courses of instruction, which will meet the needs of workers in both large and small organisations.  There are many aspects of retailing, which lend themselves to courses of instruction, e.g. transport systems, staff control, hire purchase systems, mail order systems, accounting, advertising and display, etc.”.

In the discussion which followed the paper, Mr McGuigan (Dublin), said there was a growing demand for retail work and for classes in connection with retail distribution. In Dublin they hoped to set classes going for paid shop assistants. There, as elsewhere, the selection of boys for the distributive shops was done by the employers themselves, but it was found that when the boys came along and filled the forms that the majority of them were from the country. Eighty per cent of the apprentices in the drapery trade in Dublin were, he supposed, from the South of Ireland, and many of them were of a very high standard of education.

To be continued…

Caption:

684a. Debenhams (formerly Roches Store) and Brown Thomas (formerly Cashes); both buildings were opened in 1927 and both designed by Daniel Levie, following the burning of Cork in 1920 (picture: Kieran McCarthy, 17 March 2013)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 21 March 2013

“Technical Memories (Part 48) – Avenues of Improvement”

“At the close of day two the delegates visited Blarney Castle and Mahony’s Mills, having travelled there by train on the Muskerry line.  The Irish Technical Education Association Congress concluded its sessions yesterday [day three], when papers were read by Mr W Cox, Vice President, Incorporated British Institute of Certified Carpenters, dealing with “Apprenticeship Conditions and Avenues of Improvement”, and by Mr S A Williams, Principal, School of Retail Distribution, London (journalist, Cork Examiner, 14 June 1930).

On day three of the Irish Technical Education Association Congress, held in the Crawford Municipal Technical Institute, Mr W Cox read his paper on the nature of the apprenticeship system. The paper continued the theme that persisted through previous conference papers regarding the call for general and practical training in preparation for employment. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Mr Cox noted that for some reason or other there was “a reluctance on the part of the boys to become bound apprentices”. There was a similar reluctance on the part of employers to be concerned with them. In the latter case, he argued that it may be attributed to the absorption of many small businesses by larger firms and limited companies during previous years, “whose sole object was the increase of dividends”.

A possible reason, Cox described, for the falling off in the number of boys could have been that the “superior education afforded to the community, in recent years, stimulated the ambitions of a certain class of parents to see their sons in what is termed “the black-coated professions”. He went on to describe that there appeared to be large numbers of youths willing to go into banking, the civil service, accountancy, drawing offices and similar callings, due to the fact that positions in those posts had grown enormously since 1914. Moreover, he argued, the sub division of work due to mass production by the larger firms, was prone to give the impression to the average individual that a long apprenticeship and a thorough knowledge of a trade was unnecessary in order to earn a decent living.

Cox outlined that the woodwork industry, especially during the previous 15 years, had made very rapid progress. With a need for rapid production to meet demand, joinery and cabinet works were, in many cases, organised under what was a purely factory system. In many big towns nearly all the work was done by machinery, and all that the craftsman was required to do was to assemble the parts and clean off the finished article. But someone Cox argued must be responsible for the accurate setting out the work; he must have a thorough knowledge of construction to do this; “There must also be foremen, whose duty it is to see that the work is generally corrected performed, and who is responsible for getting out the work in time, and to see that the estimated cost is not exceeded. He must see that the proper material is selected and used, and in a thousand and one ways apply his knowledge and experience for the correct performance of the work. General managers are needed to superintend these. Such men are not likely to be chosen from those who have picked up only a part knowledge of the craft…The man who served his time and gained experience as a properly bound apprentice is the only one likely to be promoted to the coveted superior positions in the professions and the consequent increase of salaries, so much desired by all”.

“Apprenticeship is not dead”, Mr Cox, noted. He outlined that it only requires organising and updating. In this regard, he made a number of suggestions. For example, the boy who is intended for the building profession should be instructed in a technical school. At the age of fifteen, he should be bound to a firm of repute. For the first three years of his apprenticeship, he should receive technical instruction at a technical school for one day per week. The remainder of his time, he should be required to attend evening classes dealing with the more advanced section of his work. By the time he is twenty years of age, and out of his time, he should have obtained a good knowledge of geometry, the act of measuring geometrical qualities, chemistry, drawing, mechanics, physics and building science.

During the post discussion on the paper, Mr McMillan (Dublin) advocated the payment of apprentices at the rate of 12s to 17s per week during their first year, but noted that nine-tenths of the industries in which boys were apprenticed were unable to pay that rate. McMillan called for employers to allow them one day in each week to enable to attend technical classes. In addition he proposed that provided that a boy attended 75 per cent of the time during the session, his fees should be refunded to him, and if he passed a successful examination his wages for the 12 months should be increased by a shilling a week. However according to McMillan:“the boy must learn everything connected with the trade to which he was apprenticed, even by starting sweeping the floor if he was eventually to be a general manager”.

To be continued…

Wanted: looking to talk to people about their memories who attended the “Crawford Tech”, c.1930-c.1970, contact Kieran, 087 655 33 89

Caption:

683a. Train on Western Road, Cork Muskerry Light Railway, c.1910 (picture: Cork Museum)