Friday, 4 January 2013

Twiddy's Undertakers.

Born in Botolph Street Boston in 1878, Henry Twiddy started work at an early age cleaning boots at Rainey and Son's factory before he went to school in the mornings. At the age of 14 he became an errand boy for Messrs. Scrimshaw, house furnishers, Dolphin Lane (below) for 3 shillings and sixpence a week.



A year later he became apprenticed as a cabinet maker with Simpson and Son's and when his apprenticeship was completed he went to Newcastle and later spent a year with a firm in Louth before returning to Simpson's, of Boston, (below) with whom he spent the next 22 years, the last ten as foreman.



Mr. Twiddy had always had the ambition to start his own business, and eventually he bought the premises of Mr. W. Darby, undertaker and art dealer, in Wormgate, where he continued the business of undertaker and converted the shop into a furniture dealers emporium.  The only help he had at this time was from his brother, Mr. Sidney Twiddy, but later the showrooms were much enlarged (by 1924 he occupied numbers 41, 43 and 45 Wormgate) and modernised and his two sons entered the business, and he employed a cabinet maker, an apprentice and an upholsterer.
In 1893 Henry became a member of the Grove Street Congregational Church, became a Deacon in 1915 and became treasurer of the church (below) in 1934, he was also a member of the choir for many years.



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