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Market Square, Brentford

Howard Webb sent this postcard image of the Market Place on a quiet day: "real photo postcard by Wakefields, unused and undated, I'd guess date to be c1905."

It shows the western side of Market Square, or Market Place, and the Town Hall to the right.

Signage visible on the high-resolution scan: 'Chops and steaks' were available in the dining room of the Three Pigeons. The two boys stand in the entry to the yard behind the Pigeons, and the taller boy, from his uniform, may have worked for the Post Office, on the opposite side of Market Place. The next building, Goddard's Wholesale Warehouse, which sold china, glass and earthenware, looks to be empty with 'To Let' signs in five of the six windows. On the ground floor are signs forMr Wilfrid Firth, Solicitor.

Wilfrid Firth, solicitor

Who was Wilfrid Firth?

Newspaper reports show Wilfrid Firth took cases at Brentford Police Court and Brentford Sessions from January 1905 until weeks before his death in 1935.

In the 1911 census Wilfrid was household head of a ten-room house in Bedfont. He was 39, a solicitor born Halifax, Yorkshire with his father, William Senior Frith, 80, a retired timber merchant, and two nieces, Mabel and Beatrice Alice Hutchinson, ages 20 and 17, both born Preston, Lancashire. They had a live-in servant Gladys Tyler, 21, born Isleworth Middlesex.

Middlesex County Times 30 November 1935, carries an announcement of his death. He was 63 and 'well known and popular in the local courts. He lived at Bedfont, but his offices were in Brentford, where he had a large practice. His wife, who survives him, was Miss Doris Gwendoline Osborn-Jenkyn, a member of an Ealing family.'

Middlesex County Times 07 December 1935:
THE LATE MR WILFRID FIRTH
The funeral of the late Mr Wilfrid Firth took place on Tuesday, at the St John Crematorium, Woking. In accordance with Mr Firth's expressed wish, the ceremony was extremely simple, and there were no flowers. Among those present were Mr C O Osborn-Jenkyn and Mr Langley Hobbs of Ealing, and Cty Alderman Forrester Clayton and Messrs J Colley and A Charlton, representing the Brentford Bench of magistrates.
Mr Firth's practice is being carried on for the present by Mr C O Osborn-Jenkyn, his brother-in-law.

Goddard's shop

This is a well-known local family, the site includes more about them.

Links

This postcard view is from a similar date and shows the market in action, with glimpses of the Three Pigeons and Goddard's shop in the background.

Published January 2022