No 42 King Street

42 King Street

Luce's shopfront in 1936

1969

No 42 King Street has been home to wide variety of businesses, from bakery to confectionery, to Eau de Cologne shop, to jewellers and more recently sport equipment.

The first recorded occupant was cooper R Quarm, shown in an 1837 commercial directory. Whether he lived there, or made his barrels there, is uncertain.

Master baker Charles Le Feuvre (1826- ) was employing two men there in 1861. He lived with his wife Susan (1826- ) and sons Charles (1853- ), John (1855- ), George (1857- ) and Clement (1858- ), plus two servants. There was a separate household occupied by sisters Louisa Lucas (1838- ), a seaman's wife, and Harriet Bisson (1843- ), a dressmaker. There are no baptism records for the children and we have been unable to find Susan's maiden name.

The 1871 census records dressmaker Elizabeth Coutanche (1829- ) as the only occupant of the premises.

By 1880 Mark Saunders has established a confectionery business, continued through until around the end of the century by his daughter Jane. The 1881 census shows Mark (1815- ) living at No 42 with his wife Caroline, nee Dacombe (1821- ), Jane (1843- ), Mark (1845- ), George (1847- ), Thomas (1851- ), William (1857- ), Sydney (1861- ) and granddaughter Florence (1873- ). The 1891 census shows exactly the same occupants.

We cannot find the Saunders in the 1891 census and by 1880 Jean Dupre, of the Luce's Eau de Cologne business, had acquired the property to expand his operation next door at No 44. And so it continued for 62 years, before the property became a jewellers for another 30 years.

Chronology

• 1837 - R Quarm, cooper
• 1841 - George Carr, retired Army officer
• 1851 - Unoccupied
• 1861 - Charles Le Feuvre, baker
• 1871 - Elizabeth Coutanche, dressmaker
• 1880, 1885 - M Saunders confectioner
• 1890 - J Saunders, confectioner
• 1897 - Miss Oeillet, French dressmaking (above the shop)
• 1900 - J J Dupre
• 1903-1965 - Luce's Eau de Cologne
• 1970 - Time jewellers
• 2000 - Half price jewellers
• 2010 - J D Sports

Looking towards the New Street junction. No 42 is on the left of the picture, occupied in the early 1970s by Time jewellers. The street is pedestrians-only but has yet to be paved

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  Another view of the shop front of No 42
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  Luce's bottles from a collection in the Far East
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  In 1873 the property was owned by Charles Jean Le Feuvre and was offered for sale by his curator
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  1897
• 
• 
  1967