Local History
By Roderick Martin
William Shepperd and the British Workman
IN the December 2009 Diary I wrote about the British Workman in Tavistock. Its proprietor was William Shepperd who in 1877 opened a temperance café in the old Corn Market and in 1879 transferred his business to the temperance hotel at 1 Kilworthy Hill, Tavistock. The British
Workman brand was soon dropped but William Shepperd and his wife, Annie, continued to run the hotel as a temperance hostelry for just over thirty years until 1912. They had two sons, William and Percy, and three daughters Florence, Annie and Lilian. The
received an email communication from Ian Walters living in Hong Kong referring to my article:
temperance hotel, re- named the South Western Private Hotel, survived until 1926 after which it became the Tavistock Rural District Council Offices. It is today a popular hostelry, the Ordulph Arms, which serves alcoholic drinks. This February the Diary
William became a teetotaller, and why the family came to Tavistock? With the passage of time it is unlikely that these questions can be fully answered. It is surprising to learn that William Shepperd who in later life was a pillar of the local church and of the temperance cause had previously been a mariner, an occupation not normally associated with sober habits. Perhaps it was another case that the most dedicated members to any cause are converts. I can find little published information about the origins of the British Workman brand which was started in 1867 at Leeds to combat the social problems in industrial areas caused by
“... excessive drinking of working men...”
My grateful thanks to you for the article on the British Workman temperance hotel in Tavistock, and its proprietor William Shepperd.
great-grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born in 1841 at Colchester, and registered as ‘Shepherd’. In 1865 he married Anna (sometimes Annie) Maria Salmon at Colchester. He was listed as ‘ordinary seaman’ and as ‘mariner’ in the 1861 and 1871 censuses respectively. I have some evidence that he was in
36 William Shepperd was my
China between 1860 and 1870, and hope one day to be able to find some hard proof. My father inherited in the 1950s a quantity of Chinese blackwood furniture and an intricately carved Chinese junk in ivory, under a glass dome. The memories of these items, which are long gone,
and a vaguely recollected family anecdote, are all I have. The China
connection is of particular interest to me as I have lived in Hong Kong for the last thirty eight years.
and Annie came to Tavistock is a bit of a mystery, in particular when
The time before William
the excessive drinking of working men. The organisation opened centres which served non-alcoholic refreshments in the surroundings and atmosphere of a public house, and was initially supported by a number of wealthy philanthropists. There are good grounds for believing that the British Workman organisation was operated as a ‘charitable franchise’ possibly with some financial support for starting-up. All British Workman centres seem to have operated with
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40