Beryl Riley 1920s to 30s (part 2)

Smart Town Clothes

Bainbridge & Co Gentlemans fashion (1901)

Men in smart town clothes still wore bowler hats. A fashionable woman’s partner would wear full evening dress– a black tailcoat and trousers, a black, or more usually white, waistcoat, and a white bow tie. For less formal evenings, a dinner jacket without tails could be worn. In 1925, the wide-legged baggy trousers that originated among Oxford University students were fashionable on both sides of the Atlantic, and became known as ‘Oxford bags’.

By the 1930s, women started borrowing from menswear, too. The jumper or chic sweater became an alternative to the blouse. Fashionable silk scarves had bold, colourful designs.

In 1919, the then three-year-old fashion magazine Vogue, published a list advising women what to pack for a summer weekend away – it included 8 dresses, 3 hats and 4 pairs of shoes, plus a face veil for walking in the breeze, sailing or motoring.

None of this made much difference to Beryl. Like most working class girls at the time, she didn’t have the money or the time to follow the latest fashions. Her wardrobe was divided between workwear and her ‘Sunday best’ dress which she wore to Mass in the morning, and depending on the season, to a picnic or one of East London’s new picture houses (cinemas) in the afternoon. As far as Beryl was concerned, women who went sailing and motoring were from a different planet.

John Lewis’ Business Dress

Bainbridge & Co gents overcoats (1900)

When the first John Lewis store opened in Oxford Street in 1864, shopworkers wore a universal uniform of black dresses with high white collars for women, and black jackets with white high-collared shirts, black ties and striped trousers for men.

Women’s ‘business dress’ began to change in the early years of the twentieth century. In 1914, female staff at John Lewis’s Peter Jones store changed from black to navy blue, and in 1923 they changed again to brown dresses with cream cuffs. Dark green dresses became the order of the day (apparently it was Mr and Mrs Lewis’s favourite colour) for non-management women in 1931, while female section managers wore blue at Peter Jones and grey at John Lewis. The founder’s own opinion was that ladies should ‘harmonise’ (fit in) with the decoration scheme in their own departments!

As a cleaner, Beryl worked in the evenings after the department store closed. She would take the number 38 bus from Bethnal Green to Piccadilly, then walk up Regent Street to John Lewis in Oxford Street. At first she wasn’t too happy about working late, but after she married Fred Davis in 1928 the late shift suited her better. Fred worked as a night watchmen in a factory in Stepney, so at least they got to spend some time together in the mornings and afternoons.

Married Life

A selection Jones Bros of skirts (1914)

Beryl was a true Cockney, born within earshot of the Bow Bells, but Fred was originally from Lancashire. After the war, he decided to try his luck in London rather than go back to his job as a miner. He met fellow Catholic Beryl at Mass with her parents. Like most ordinary young couples at the time, they couldn’t afford a honeymoon.

The selling staff at John Lewis worked from 9 am to 6.30 pm, when Beryl started. In 1924, the staff council discussed closing the shop half-an-hour earlier at 6pm. Founder John Spedan Lewis argued that “it would be a shame if the Partners fail to make use of their own premises for as many hours as these could be kept open profitably”. His argument won the day and the store stayed open until 6.30 pm.

John Spedan Lewis (1906)

In 1933, Beryl and Fred had their first daughter Maria Davis. At 24, Beryl was quite old for a first time mother in the 1930s. Falling birth rates (16.7 per 1,000 population in 1930 was half the 1900 figure) meant a reduction in the average size of families – those numbering three or more children became less typical and those with one to two increased. But working class families, especially Catholic families like Beryl and Fred’s, were still large. As the first-born, Maria was given a traditional Catholic name. She turned out to be the first of six children and busy mum Beryl would never go back to work.

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