Main Street through the ages: Tom Booth's Cycle & Motor Depot

There's something so special about the old photos that capture a moment in the life of the people (and dogs!) who used to live in Frodsham.

I love this picture of Tom Booth's Cycle & Motor Depot, in which Tom stands in the doorway with what seems – judging by an earlier photo – to be his daughter Jennifer, guarded faithfully by their little dog.

The photo appears to have been taken in the 1920s, when Tom's cycle shop was a well-established feature of Main Street.

According to a very informative account by Joseph Barker, as a young man at the turn of the century, Tom had initially worked for his father, Peter, who ran a Church Street draper's shop.

Tom would go round the area selling menswear, and his customers would give him bicycle coupons that they had been saving up from Lever Bros Soap firm, which was founded in 1884 over in Warrington.

Once he had gathered together the necessary amount, Tom was able to exchange these tokens for a bike, growing his collection until he had enough to open his shop!

Barker writes that Tom began selling Hercules cycles at a price of £3.10.0d. Founded in 1910, this company was eventually dissolved in 2003.

On the picture, it also says that Tom Booth's was also an 'agent for Douglas Motorcycles', which was a major motorbike supplier during World War One and very popular with dirt track racers in the 1920s.

Image kindly provided by Frodsham and District History Archive