This is Bedford House in Bedford Street Shelton as it is today. It is where Flo' and my Great Grandfather lived at the time of my Grandfather's marriage to Muriel Irene Moss. Today it is an North Staffs NHS Clinic.
The sad building that used to be the offices of F Swinnerton & Sons Ltd. Part of the building has already been demolished. The corner of the building used to be the thriving bakery shop and off licence. I remember sitting on the window ledge of the brown downstairs window which lit the secretary's office to wave my flag as the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh drove past in the early 1950s, I think I was about 7. I can still remember hearing the raising cheer of the crowd getting louder as the car approached, then seeing her waving her gloved hand as the car went by and subsided as it drove away down the hill.
This is where Francis Swinnerton and his wife Emily Honor nee Jenkins, a cabinet maker's daughter from Newport, Shropshire moved in 1869. She appears on the census for 1881 as a 'confectioner'. She was certainly a pivotal person in the development of the business. I suspect that it was her dowry that provided the funds to buy what was in those days a substantial property in which they lived for many years with their growing family, three apprentices and up to six members of staff.
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