For this month’s #ExploreYourArchive theme, ‘Business & Manufacturing’, we’re looking at advertisements in the student newspaper collection, and take a journey back in time to explore local businesses in Swansea.
In the earliest student newspapers from the 1920s there are adverts for R.E. Jones Ltd. This catering company had been set up by Richard Edwin Jones in 1870 and the business had a portfolio of cafes, restaurants and hotels across South Wales and London. Located in Swansea were the Yacht Cafe in Southend, Mumbles and the Mackworth Hotel on Swansea’s High Street.
Many will remember the famous David Evans department store in Swansea. It was established as a partnership in 1900 by local draper David Evans, Cardiff business man Soloman Andrews and his son Francis Emile Andrews. The business opened on the site of the Theatre Royal in the heart of Swansea, but was destroyed by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. A new building was erected on the same site in 1954. In the 1970s the business was purchased by House of Fraser, but the store was closed in the early 2000s and the building demolished in 2007. The site is now home to a selection of clothes shops.
If you ventured down to the Southend area of Mumbles in the 1970s you would have come across ‘Boots ‘n’ Pieces’, a clothes shop specialising in leatherwear, clogs and trainers! The shop was located at 602 Mumbles Rd, and the site is now home to Indian restaurant ‘Mint’.
Finally we visit The Countryman Nightclub and Restaurant in Scurlage, Gower. Some might remember the free Saturday night minibus that drove around the pubs of Gower collecting revellers and dropping them off at The Countryman to dance the night away! Famous for ‘very nice prices’ and a mismash of garage and cheesy tunes, The Countryman was a focal point of Gower – but sadly the business closed in 2019 and its future is unclear.
The advertisements in the student newspapers are a wonderful resource to not only explore the history of business in Swansea, but also get an insight into cultural change and many social aspects of student life – including fashion, eating out, work and leisure.