Williams newsagents and the International Stores

Now unmistakably ‘Steamer Trading’ (2018) this shop was in the 1950s the province of William Thomas Williams’ bookshop, newsagent and tobacconist. Through a handful of different proprietors, this premises had been involved with the sale of books and newspapers for eighty years at this point. To the right of Williams’ shop stood the ‘International Stores’ in the left-hand half of what today (2018) is Ruach Kitchens. A well-known grocery outlet all over souther England from 1900 until the 1960s, the business had been founded in 1878 as ‘The International Tea Co. Ltd.’  Rebranded as the International Stores around 1910, the company survived until it was bought out by British American Tobacco Industries in 1972 along with the Mac Fisheries chain, then owned by Unilever. The BAT giant that was formed became ‘Gateway’ supermarkets, and then Somerfield.

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