BAYKO in J. G. Graves Mail Order

John George Graves, universally known as George, was born in Lincolnshire (in 1886), but moved to Sheffield in order to take up a watchmaking apprenticeship, which, by my simple calculation, must have been right at the turn of the nineteenth century.

George [right] later set up one of the U.K.'s earliest mail order businesses. It was, not too surprisingly, initially based on imported watches, but was soon extended to encompass a wide range of fancy goods and beyond. There's more on this in just a moment.

You will notice that the top page of the catalogue, shown [below], acclaims J. G. Graves as : -

I'm afraid I can't personally endorse that claim, however, Wikipedia, and an official presentation by Sheffield Council, both go down the route of ”one of Britain's first”.

By the end of his life, George Graves had created a broad range of business and philanthropic interests in and around the Sheffield area, where he had also served as Lord Mayor in 1926, when my mum and dad were both six. His mail order business was clearly very successful, and he is known to have given away more than £1,000,000 to local good causes, which was a really substantial amount of money for the time.

Having grown to be so successful, J.G. moved his businesses into the former Waterworks Building [left] on Division Street, Sheffield.

I'm afraid I don't have a date for this evocative photo, but it must be at least a hundred year old, and was culled from a PowerPoint presentation produced by Sheffield Council.

The label [right] also shows the same building, but also lists, in headlines at least, the range of merchandise - ”Watch Importer & Jeweller, Electro Plate & Cutlery Merchant” - it then goes on to list - ”Clocks, Bronzes, Writing Desks, Gladstone bags, Overmantels, Sewing Machines, Brass, and Iron Bedsteads”.

A little while after his death, 1946 the mail order company was taken over by Great Universal Stores, a substantial U.K. mail order company.