Albert George Barrett Shoesmith was born on

July 22, 1876, at 21 Alexandra Street in St Leonards,

and was the son of George Shoesmith, a grocer's

Assistant, and Matilda Shoesmith, née Day. Both

parents had been born in about 1851, George at Bexhill

and Matilda at Lechlade in Gloucestershire.

They married in 1875 at Battle.

The 1891 census records that George had become a church

verger, and that he and his family were living at 14 Southwater

Road in Hastings. Albert had left school and was working as a

china merchant's apprentice. He had two younger sisters,

Lillian, aged 10 and Ellen aged 3, both born at St Leonards.

On March 11, 1899, Albert married Rosina Osborne at the

Register Office in Hastings. He was still living in St Leonards,

but had become a jeweller's assistant. Whilst working for the

jeweller, he would take photographs and go back in the

evening to the cellar to develop and print them for postcards.

Rosina had been born on February 4, 1881, and was a domestic servant. Her late father, William Henry Osborne, had been a luggage porter.

The 1901 census records that Albert and Rosina were living at 43 Stonefield Road in central Hastings, and that he had become a jeweller's manager. Rosina was a shopkeeper (apparently a grocer, but the census entry is barely legible). When Kelly's 1905 Sussex Directory was compiled, Shoesmith was a "shopkeeper" working on his own account at 17 Stone Street, at the south end of Stonefield Road, possibly selling sweets, toys and stationery as well as the jewellery and postcards.

The family lived over the shop, and while his wife and daughters looked after the shop, he took his 1/2 and full plate camera’s out to various locations to take photographs to convert into postcards for sale. At this time he used a motorcycle and sidecar to transport his equipment, camera’s, tripod and hoods.

He was still at the Stone Street address in 1908 when Pike's Hastings Directory reported that he was Manager of the Sussex Post Card Co. Parson's 1914 Directory lists Shoesmith as the proprietor of the Sussex Photographic Co.

By 1909 Albert Shoesmith moved with his family to a two-storey terraced house at 4 Earl Street, about a third of a mile to the west of Stone Street and conveniently close to the railway station. In Pike's 1910 Directory he is described as a "post card publisher" and no mention is made of jewellery, which he had presumably abandoned as his postcard business expanded.

Albert Shoesmith evidently enjoyed the challenge of starting new business ventures. In 1910, he became proprietor of the Pelham Hall Electric Theatre in Pelham Arcade, one of the first cinemas in Hastings. He was joined in this enterprise by George Etheridge, who was twelve years his junior and worked as a jeweller's assistant.

George Etheridge, who had been born in Croydon, was the son of a railway passenger guard, On January 8, 1912, Etheridge married Serena Kate Jenkins at the Registry Office in Hastings, giving his address as 18 Whitefriars Road. Their daughter Muriel married David Albert, who became a Director of the company. Little is known about his son, Ron.

He also lived in Fairlight Avenue and then St Helens Park. At some point Etheridge had a side show on either Eastbourne Pier or the sea front. Etheridge had a ledger containing details of all of the postcards (known as The Bible), but due to constant re-workings of the numbers, the ledger became impossible to use, and was scrapped.

<    >

A G B Shoesmith

George Etheridge

Shoesmith & Etheridge

S&E Page 2 of 12