Wigan Album

I can never understand the desire for expensive watches like Rolex and Cartier....I only want to know what time it is! I wonder if this is the same McCurdy's that had a furniture shop in Hallgate in the 1970s? I believe there was a branch in Scholes. I bought a copper warming pan from the Hallgate shop when I got married and it is still hanging on our chimney-breast as I type, 50 years on!

Keith, having just read through my own comment, please don't think I was comparing Rolex and Cartier watches with McCurdy's prices and your very interesting McCurdy's advert......I was just passing an opinion. My watch broke last year when we were in Whitby and we looked for a replacement in shop windows and they were £300 upwards, and that's when I said I only want to know what time it is!! But I hope my comment didn't come across as derogatory in any way. It certainly wasn't intended to be. I could read adverts for old Wigan shops all day!

I only remember McCurdy’s selling furniture. We had some really nice furniture from there over the years. I can remember it all in the early sixties. The period of ‘never having it so good’.

Irene , yes the one in Hallgate was the same firm , they moved to Hallgate when the Scholes shop closed for redevelopment of the area.
John McCurdy was a Mayor of Wigan and later an Alderman. When Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll. visited Wigan she opened The John Mc Curdy Hall , Parsons Walk . John Flatley , John Mc Curdy's nephew took over the business as nice a man as you would ever wish to meet, both he and his Uncle traded in the old fashioned way , no gimmicks just good value and trust in their customers .

I should have said in my previous comment the year Her Majesty Queen ll opened The John Mc Curdy Hall was 1954.
To give some idea of the value of the prices in the advertisement - £1 in 1908 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £150.76.

I have personally never desired an expensive watch I would be scared of losing it for one thing.,I'm wearing a £20 one from Next which I've had about 5 years,but I can understand why people who can afford them buy them as they are known to double in value on purchase,which makes them a very good investment.

Tom, when my Dad worked at the Wagon Works in Ince, they used to give a party every Christmas for the children of the employees, and I remember attending one at a building in Parson's Walk just past Wigan Tech, and "The John McCurdy Hall" rings a bell. We always got a really good quality present and I still had a sewing box when I got married which I had received at that party when I was about nine or ten years old.

Name John McCurdy
Gender Male
Marital Status Single
Birth Date 7 Dec 1869
Residence Date 1939
Address 4.Bridgewater Terrace
Residence Place Wigan, Lancashire, England
Occupation Furniture Merchant John McCurdy Single Furniture Merchant
Annie McCurdy Single Retired
John Flatley Single Furniture Shop Assistant

I seem to recall John McCurdy's Store being quite large with a few floors, you could see the name on the side wall well before you got to the top of Scholes.
With all the other shops and pubs in Scholes it just shows how these out of town places like Darlington Street had huge populations around and offered so much.
Hard to believe that in my lifetime so much has changed.

Alderman McCurdy was at one time chair of the education committee. He was the driving force in the creation of the Thomas Linacre school. Wigan was one of the few local authorities who implemented the three strand secondary education as recommended in the 1944 education act. Secondary Modern, Secondary Technical and Secondary Grammar schools. It’s a pity the Thomas Linacre school, and others like it, were closed. There wouldn’t be such a shortage today of engineers across the economy today were such schools in vogue.

I have a fine honey oak chest of drawers bought by my parents in 1921 from McCurdy for £5.It had an oval looking glass and an Overmantel.It was apparently reduced in price because of a small stain, which was covered by a bronze ornament
I remember Alderman McCurdy we'll,arriving at the shop daily in bowler hat

I am interested in what Tom Walsh says about the Thomas Linacre
I thought that by the time it opened Eddie Maloney,McCurdy's protege had succeeded as Chairman of the Wigan Education Committee
Certainly it was Eddie,also like me a Caunce Street lad, who interviewer me in 1954 for an extension to my Borough Scholarship

McCurdy,s father Denis,started off as a pawnbroker.I think in Greenough Street

High end watches such as Rolex and Cartier are classed as jewellery, cheap watches are not. As such they don't devalue, their value increases. A Rolex watch purchased 20 years ago will now have doubled in price, some examples may have tripled. Better than money in the bank!

It still only tells you what time it is but I get your point, Sgt Pepper, and thankyou! I imagine it would be something of value to pass down through the family but I have seen them on Antiques Roadshow and just don't like them. I have very small wrists and they would swamp them! But each to his own. We all view things through different eyes. xxx

Donald Underwood , if you put Bygone Wigan into search box, the film will come up it's very interesting.near the end of the film "Royal Visits "
shows The Queen opening The John Mc Curdy Hall .on the 21st October 1954.
If you haven't seen the film you're in for a treat.

Tom Walsh.Thank you for the prompt