Woods’ music shop, Norwich
Both Billy Bennington and Russell Wortley mentioned getting piano wire and other spare parts for dulcimers from a music shop on Dove Street in Norwich called Woods & Sons. Wortley copied down a tuning diagram on his last visit there in 1962.
This shop must have been a really useful resource for all the dulcimer makers and players right across the eastern region. Woods’ shop was mentioned as supplier of dulcimer strings in an old diary belonging to a relative of dulcimer player Oswald Stammers, who had lived in Brightlingsea on the Essex coast, and the same tuning system was also used by Stanley Shemming, in Ipswich in Suffolk.
In 1883 Alexander Rackham Woods set up a music business, tuning and repairing pianos and dealing in musical instruments more widely. His father had been a successful solicitor in Norwich, and Alexander initially worked as a music teacher and piano tuner. Following his father’s death and his own marriage in 1883, he began to advertise a wider range of music services, and teaching was no longer mentioned. The advert below (1889) mentions “Strings and Fittings for Dulcimers”.
With a growing family, Alexander was living and working in Lower Goat Lane, but by 1893, although the family were still living in Lower Goat Lane, they also seem to have had a shop on Briggs Street. This may have been short-lived, as the trade directory and electoral roll listings mention only the Lower Goat Lane address from 1896. From around 1908, the family moved to a couple of different addresses, staying for a number of years at 33 Heigham Road, where in the 1911 census, it was stated that Alexander worked “on his own account, at home.”
However, the family had actually taken on the shop premises at 15 Dove Street between 1905 and 1907, as in the Kelly’s Directory for 1908, Alexander’s twenty-three year old daughter Elsie is listed there, running a stationery business, and it seems the premises had come up for sale following the previous tenant’s bankruptcy, in around 1905. Elsie was clearly a capable young woman, as had previously run the book-selling and print side of the business since the age of sixteen when the family were still in Goat Lane.
Alexander died suddenly in 1916, having a heart attack whilst at the premises of a piano dealer in Yarmouth which he worked for occasionally. His obituary reveals him to have had a long and honourable involvement with various voluntary army groups in Norwich and he was said to have been an “accomplished musician” and bandmaster of the 1st Battalion of the Norfolk Volunteer Regiment. The floral tributes at his burial included one, from his wife, in the shape of a harp.
It is interesting that the story that I’ve known for years was of the Woods shop being run by two brothers, but on further investigation, for around 50 years, from 1908, it seems that two women in the family – Alexander Rackham Woods’ daughter Elsie (1885-1960) and his widow Elizabeth were very much involved in running the business too. In later years it was certainly two of his sons, Theodore Mendelssohn (1893-1966) and Alexander Frederick (1896-1976), who were the faces behind the counter, and the people who are remembered today.
The business became known as “E. Woods & Sons” and continued as “Mrs E. Woods & Sons” even after Elizabeth’s death in 1930. A third brother Clarence was also a piano tuner but doesn’t seem to have been involved in the shop. It closed sometime after 1962, probably around 1966 when Theodore died and his brother Alex was seventy years old.
So far there are no known photos of the Woods or their shop, but there is this lovely letterhead – and the contents! The signature is T.M. (Theodore Mendelssohn Woods). Courtesy of the estate of Russell Wortley.
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