PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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Messrs R B TOPE & COMPANY Ltd
The Plymouth business house of Messrs R B Tope & Company Ltd, canvas merchants and marquee, tent, tarpaulin and flag makers, was located at 12/13 Southside Street and 21/22 The Parade, Plymouth.
An advert from 1953. Mr William Tope was a master tailor in the village of South Brent, Devon, in 1851. He and his wife Elizabeth had four sons and one daughter, the newest addition to the family being 6-months-old Master Richard Brooking Tope. [1] Young Richard evidently did not want to follow his father's trade and after attending school he went off to Plymouth to seek his fortune, which is where we find him in the 1871 census, living in Queen Street as a baker and confectioner. [2] Mr Richard Brooking Tope married Miss Selina Williams in Tavistock in 1875. [3] The 1881 census found the couple at number 23 Parade, on the Barbican, where Richard employed two boys to assist in the bakery. They had one child, Master Enoch William Tope, just 3 years old, and a general servant by the name of Miss Emily Rapson, who like Selina hailed from Tavistock. [4] They were still at the Parade in 1891 but between then and the next census in 1901 Richard made a change of career and of home. In the 1901 census both Richard and his son, Enoch, are tent and flag makers and the small family were living at number 8 Hoe Street. [5] This change of career seems to have been inspired by a side-line to the bakery business - renting our marquees. In 1890 Richard was listed at 23 Parade as both a baker and marquee contractor. [6] So the 1911 census finds number 8 Hoe Street getting crowded, with 60-years-old Mr Richard Brooking Tope and his wife and general servant living with Mr Enoch William Tope and his wife, a son and daughter and a domestic servant. The son was Mr Richard Brooking Tope junior, then seven-years-old. [7] Mr Enoch William Tope died on Saturday April 13th 1918 in Friary Nursing Home, prior to his father, Richard Brooking Tope, on Saturday August 16th 1919 [8]. Of those at his funeral on Wednesday August 21st 1919, Mr & Mrs W Woodley, Mrs Bullock, Miss Stevens and Mrs Martin were noted as employees of Mr Tope's [9]. Presumably this was the point at which Enoch's son, Master Richard Brooking Tope junior, then 17-years-old, took over the business. Mr Richard Brooking Tope retired in 1976 and the business was sold to Messrs Black and Edginton, although it continued to trade under its old name from the same premises under the directorship of Mr H A Hebdige and Mr J F Warren. [10] At that time it was stated that the business had been commenced in 1860 by Mr E W Tope, who had not even been born then, and that he was the grandfather of the Mr Tope now retiring, who was actually his son. They also claimed the business was 95 years old, making the date of founding as 1881, which was probably the year in which they actually started to hire out the marquees. [10]
Mr Richard Brooking Tope died on July 6th 1985 at
Freedom Fields Hospital. He was 81 years of age. [8] Sources:
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