| Date | 12 December 2014 |
|---|---|
| Source | Slough Observer |
| Reference | VP-0096 |
| Volume | Views of the Past |
| Collection | Views of the Past |
Transcript
Family firm grew quickly
A COUPLE of years ago I wrote about the Isaacs family of Slough who had a pawnbrokers and later furniture store in Slough established as early as 1865.
Nathaniel Samuel Isaacs came from London to Slough to work for his father-in-law Lawrence Lazurus who was running a pawnbrokers shop known as the Beehive.
This was the start of a business which was to grow and branches were opened in Maidenhead and Windsor. By 1939 the Slough shop alone employed 15 people.
During the war new furniture was rationed and was only available to newly married couples and people who had lost all their furniture in bombing raids.
Also so on sale were Government surplus parachutes which were quickly snapped up by local office girls and were made into underwear or nightdresses.
In the early 1950s, a new furniture shop was opened by Joseph Isaacs in Peascod Street in Windsor. This building started life as a brewery which was started in the 1760s by the Twinch family. By 1846 it was being run by brothers Frederick and John Twinch. In 1870, the brewery was sold to John Canning who renamed it the Royal Brewery.
By 1921 it was acquired by the London brewer Noakes and Co, which closed down in 1930. In 1930, the building was then sold to William Creak who opened a second-hand furniture shop which was later purchased by J. Isaacs to add to their expanding empire of furniture shops.
In the early 1960s, the Peascod Street shop was given a modern unified shop front with a heightened roof line totally obliterating the old brewery façade which had been part of Peascod Street for much of the 19th and 20th Century.
The frontage of the adjacent old brewery tap was retained. Though now concealed, the original hatch into the ‘tun room’ still survives.
In 1980-81, the furniture store moved into William Street and the old front which fronted Peascod Street was divided into two shops with offices above. The Isaacs furniture shop ceased trading in 1987 and the firm became a property investment business.
TRADING PLACES: Isaacs furniture shop during the 1950s occupying the old Canning’s Brewery building in Peascod Street, Windsor, above left. The 1960s Isaacs unified shop front, above right.
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