| Ref No | DD/1001 |
| Alt Ref No | DD/1001 |
| Title | Records of Gillingham and Company, 365 Fulham Palace Road, Fulham, Boot and Shoe Manufacturers and Retailers |
| Description | Ledgers and accounts and employee records |
The family company of Gillingham was established in 1912 when Frederick Charles Gillingham opened a shop in Weymouth, Dorset. In 1920 he moved his business to Fulham where he had a shop and workshop at 365 Fulham Palace Road. From December 1923 until 1928 he also occupied premises at 361 Fulham Palace Road. In September 1939 Theodore John Gillingham took over his father's business of making, repairing and selling boots and shoes.
The shop remained open during the Second World War, surviving an incendiary bomb which fell directly on the workshop, coating the minister of war's shoes in magnesium dust. T J Gillingham built up a strong reputation in the shoe trade numbering royalty, government leaders and film stars among his customers. The monogrammed slippers worn by Churchill at Yalta, shoes for Robert Donat and Charles Laughton, and the suede boots of producer David O Selznik, in London for the premiere of his movie Gone with the Wind, were all made in Gillingham's workshop.
In the later twentieth century the company began to concentrate more on children's shoes and the manufacturing side of the business was closed. T J Gillingham ran the company until his death in November 1993. Ownership then passed to a partnership consisting of his daughter, Betty Gillingham Barnard, his son, Paul Gillingham and Shirley Ford, who joined the company in 1954. Gillingham & Co is still in existence [2004] as a family business of shoe fitters and retailers |
| Date | 1921-1999 |
| Related Material | Local history file F658.93 GIL
Many of the artifacts and other written records are held in the Northampton Shoe Museum, Guildhall Road, Northampton. A Pedescope X-ray machine, used extensively in the shop from the early 1950s to the 1970s, is now held at the Thackray Medical Museum, Beckett Street, Leeds |