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Park Street 1944
On visiting Hardmans Solicitors, to discuss the much put off writing of will I noticed a framed photo in the waiting room. Other than it being part of Park Street that had obviously been bombed or shelled in WW2 nothing more was known about it. So we decided to see what we could find out about the buildings in the photo.
Looking at the photo you can see Hardmans solicitors offices on the far left, the old Methodist church building, which was then the library, and Elsmere’s Fish and Chip Saloon.
The book, by David Collyer, Deal at War and District at War tells us that on January 20 1944, when Deal was suffering from prolonged early morning shelling, a shell hit the Park Tavern, demolishing it and severely damaging the adjoining Co-Operative. On the opposite side of the road Elesmere’s fish and chip saloon and the town’s library, next to Hardmans Solicitors, were damaged by the resulting blast. Hardmans got off lightly but the town library and Elsmeres did not.
We have now found a few other similar examples of this photo, all showing the blast damage, and also one of the Park Tavern taken soon after it was hit.
Park Tavern Morrison Shelter
According to the Dover Express, Ernest Adams the landlord and his wife Amy with their young daughter, Joy, had taken shelter in their Morrison. Joy and the family dog, who was the them, survived. Their son, Robert Adams, was not with them on that fateful morning so he too survived.
Park Street
Park Street itself is one of Deal’s ‘newer’ streets being laid out and occupied from the early 1850s. It was built on the grounds of Park House, the childhood home of Elizaberth Carter’s niece, Hannah Smith nee Carter. Hannah had moved to Belgium with her husband in the early 1840s, perhaps to be near her niece who lived there with her Belgian husband. Eventually, after several years, they sold the contents, then the house itself was broken up and its building materials and fittings sold off in 1847.
Kentish Gazette 26 October 1847
Tithe Map 1943
2 Park Street ~ Elsmere Fish and Chip Saloon
The property in the foreground of the photo, now rebuilt and extended, is today the ladies hairdressers ‘Kirby Cuts’ but at the time was Elesmere’s Fish and Chip Saloon. It was run by Frederick E Elsmere and his wife Gwenllian nee Watkeys, and it is in her name that the business is listed as in the 1939 Pain & Sons’ Directory for the Deal area.
Gwenllian was born, possibly in the Swansea area, in 1892 and married Frederick Ellwood Elsmere there in 1923. Frederick was born in Swansea in 1898, his father was a Society of Friends Minister but was probably working in the building industry as by 1911 he was a manager of a brickworks. In 1911 Fredrick was not living at home but was a boarder at a school in Penarth, a growing farming and fishing village on the coast of Cardiff Bay. Perhaps this is where he gained his love of fishing. During WW1 he served in the Rifle Brigade after which he returned to Swansea where he probably trained as an Electrician. On the 1921 census he states that he is ‘an out of work electrician’. The situation soon changed when he married Gwenlilian and the couple moved to Caterham in Surrey where they remained until 1936 when they moved to Hurstpierpoint in Sussex. What brought about the move and change in occupation we don’t know but by 1939 Frederick and Gwenllian were the proud owners of their Fish & Chip Saloon. Some of the fish at least may have been caught by Fredrick himself. It certainly was his intention in 1947 when he purchased the motor boat Jorgydansk to ‘catch his own wares’ for his Fishmongers, though by his death in 1957 his business is described as a ‘fried fish restaurant.’
Thanet Advertiser 10 October 1947
The Library
The church building was later demolished and in its place now stands the Centre for the Retired, in 1944 though it was the Town library. Built in around 1860 for the Primitive Methodists of the town but by the early 1930s it was no longer in use. Kent County Council purchased and then converted it into Deal Library which was officially opened on October 3 1932, by Alderman F W Payne JP and Chairman of the Kent County Council.
According to a newspaper report 241 people registered in the first seven days. Then in 1942 after the death of Dr. F W Hardman, the solicitor whose offices were next door to the library, bequeathed his collection of 650 local and county books to the library.
The building was so badly damaged by the blast that it was transferred to the east wing of the Parochial School, then on London Road. Post war, in 1948, when the school required its wing back the library was moved to the Hall of the Victoria Baptist Church until alterations could be made to the former Victoria Hospital on Wellington Road where it moved to in July 1949. The library on its present site was opened in 1976.
Hardmans Solicitors
Doctor Frederick William Hardman who was born in Davyhulme, Manchester in 1861. By the age of twenty he was an articled law clerk having Matriculated from Owens College, Manchester, in 1880., becoming first a Bachelor of law gaining his Ll.B in 1885 then in 1887 his Doctorate in law, Ll.D. receiving the Private Study medal.
He moved to Walmer in June 1888 taking up a position with Mr. Taylor of Park Street after Mr R S Mason, his former partner, had retired. By this time Dr Hardman had been practising Law for six years, latterly as the Solicitor to the Treasury and Public Prosecutor in London. By November 1888 Mr Frank Taylor appears to have left England leaving Dr. Hardman to run the practice in his own name, F W Hardman.
In 1890 Dr. Hardman married Constance Walton in the Wesleyan Chapel, Quex Road, Kilburn. On returning to Walmer they set up home in a house named Beechlands on Dover Road, later moving to 16 Clarence Road, now Archery Square. Here they had two sons who both later qualified as Solicitors and joining their father in the practice, which then became known as Hardman and Sons
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Dr. Hardman had retired and the practice was carried on in the Deal office by his son Gerald Hardman. Another son, Philip, had opened a branch in Broadstairs.
According to the Hardman’s website it was agreed by the Solicitors in Deal that if any of them were to suffer bomb damage during the war, they would help each other out. As such when Mr Leonard Watson of High Street, also suffered damage and as the sole solicitor of the firm, he asked Gerald Hardman to join him. The firm then became Hardman & Watson. Gerald Hardman retired in around 1960 but the firm retained the name of Hardman, as it still is today.
