Proud to Serve

The growth of William and John Perrings’ businesses in the early part of the 20th Century was centered on the suburban building around the Underground, Metropolitan and District Lines. Product deliveries from London’s East End were by horse and cart. A day’s work would take in three or four shop locations.

The First World War intervened and young men went to war, the businesses struggled to survive. In the copy of the House Magazine John William Perring my Uncle Jack recounts his experiences coming back from the War.

The Luton van and motor cars enabled greater distances to be covered, the building boom moved to the outer suburbs and supplies were no longer dominated by the east end.

Shops were opened in Kingston upon Thames, Oxford, Worthing and Guildford and rear access and goods handling space became important.

When the second World War was looking likely there was some experience learnt from twenty years earlier. Upper floors of showrooms were turned over to aircraft production the involvement with wire spring led to production of Circuits webs for Wellington Bombers and Armature Coils.

After the war ended there again followed difficult years of rationing and shortages, The competitive past between the separate firms were forgotten and survival planning was my principle brief when I completed my two years conscription in 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain.

The Family tree on Ancestry has been one of my projects in recent years since I served as Sherriff in The City of London. Ella and I were encouraged to create a joint Coat of Arms by Sir Colin Cole the Herald at that time. My Father in Law had taken responsibility for recording many aspects of Pelham history.

After his early death in 1969 Ella’s mother had kept it up to date but a coincidence with a neighbor announcing that she was a cousin of Ella’s led me to trace the relationship back to the 1850s. Stanmer House and Park in Sussex was the family home of the Pelhams and we have gathered members of the wider family there where it is now run as a restaurant. Our two younger children now live in this corner of Sussex and take a keen interest in local conservation and History.

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The Family Tree

The title of my memoirs is my families motto adopted by my grandfather. The family moved from Bishops Stortford to London in the mid 19th century, my great grandfather settled in Whitfield Street where he had a shop selling household goods. He was a lay preacher at the Baptist Church and he brought up ten children. William and John worked in the shop in the late 1880s and when they achieved 21 years of age when he set them up to run their own shop replicating what they had learnt.

This  was a period of vast building in the London Suburbs  North and South of the Thames, William opened in Paddington and John in Richmond on Thames. Their stories are recorded in Douglas Perring’s book “The Humble Past” gave little insight to the 20th Century; this I feel should be recorded for future generations.

My Grandfather John Earnest Perring recorded that he was brought up to achieve “in your forties a man should be giving back to society having secured a position of respect. He was knighted in1930’s and his Arms bear the motto Proud to Serve

William was knighted as the MP for Paddington and was a founder of the Furnishing Industries Benevolent Association.