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Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: Nutty1966 on Sunday 26 November 06 15:09 GMT (UK)
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Hi :D
Can anybody please tell me what a Corn Merchant actually did - did he sell the corn?? Was it a good job??? Am I been really dense over this :-[ and where would ideally live to do this job, city???? or village??? countryside????
Just clutching at a few straws to see if I can work something out over yet another hiding rellie ;D
Jane ;)
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I posted this as part of a reply to someone asking about whether Newport Road, Middlesbrough used to be shops.
A Thurlow Levi (great name!) who was a corn and flour dealer was shown at number 131 so looks like it was a shop then.
So it seems that a corn dealer didn't necessarily have to live in the countryside
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Corn dealers were agents who bought grain from farmers and sold it either for feed or seed depending on such factors as bushel weight, quality, malting suitability, purity of the sample (ie weed seeds)and so on.
When we were kids, dad sold corn through a dealer who had the feed mill in the local market town. They had a shop for pet food and things in the High Street, but traded farm feed and seed through the Victorian feed mill nearby.
Farmers always tended to think they were being swindled by the dealer who seemed to find every reason to keep the price down. ::)
Even today, grain is sold for different purposes depending on its quality. Milling wheat and malting barley attract a premium, while poorer samples are used for animal feed. There is also a demand for pure samples for next year's seed which have to be weed free and sometimes receive chemical treatment against pests and diseases.
Good examples of dealers can be seen in the film "Far from the Madding Crowd" where Bathsheba takes her samples to the Corn Exchange in town- Exchanges were built in the arable areas where buyers and sellers could deal -Blandford Forum in Dorset had a famous one.
Fred
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My local pet shop has a plaque on it which says "Corn Chandlers established 1926". The family who owned it up to about ten years ago were farmers at the time when it first opened and used it to sell corn and hay from the farm but also other products mainly for the town's people to look after their horses. In the last thirty years I have seen it move away from that market to the now traditional pet shop.
David
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The pet shop in Coatham Road, Redcar was always known as the corn stores - maybe for the same reason :)
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Thank you all so much for your help ;D
Jane
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Hi
Not sure if this thread is still live as it is years ago.... but I used to go to the Corn Stores on Coatham High St with my grandfather in the early 1960s. They had huge sacks of corn for pigeons on the floor and the place smelt great! Grandad and the owner were boyhood friends I believe. Next door was the Station Hotel and on the opposite corner was Boagey's grocers.
My grandfather was Joe Caton and had the newsagents at 136 High St, Redcar.
Jan Clatworthy
Researching old Redcar sailors, fishing and fish selling families (CATON, BAKER, THOMPSON, BURNISTON, CLARK, LEYTON, FLECK) from Redcar and Stokesley, and BUTTERWICK (Stokesley)
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There's a pic of Boagey's on here:
http://www.communigate.co.uk/ne/themarsh/page78.phtml
Station Hotel is still there but unfortunately not the Corn Stores
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That sounds lke many buildings in Redcar. returned from SA in 1999 and was horrified to see the town centre in Redcar. Do you remember the Name on the corn exchange
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Sorry, I don't know the answer to that, Jane (Nutty1966 ) might know.
I've been having a look on a local forum:
www.redcar.net
There's a 'Memories' thread and within that 'Remembering old shops'. I can't see anything about the Corn Stores in all its 45 pages but you might enjoy looking at some of the other posts. There is a picture of the High Street that shows a newsagents, (page 31) not sure if it's the one you're referring to but may be worth a look.
Yes, unfortunately the High Street has not been developed well and the fact that a lot of the shops have closed doesn't help.
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So does that mean that the Corn Exchange in a town was like a Market?
How did it work? Could anyone set up as a Corn Merchant? My gt grandfather was described in a census as a corn merchant, and I know that when he left UK in 1879 to go to NZ, he had to make a financial arrangement with his creditors (who he evenually paid back in full in 1904). So would he actually go to the farmers or would they have gone to him?
Regards
Jan
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Hi, does anyone remember the family from the pet shop/ corn store?