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Paulden's Department Store
 William Paulden began trading on Stretford Road in the 1860's and continued to do business in the area until 1957. The red arrow on the aerial photograph above shows the store in 1953. The building that you see above was first built in 1879 according to the date which used to stand above the name W. Paulden on the front of the building. A document on the National Archive website from the Greater Manchester County Records Office describes Paulden as an innovator and points to the fact that he was, "the first to introduce electric lighting, lifts, escalators, plate glass windows and motorised vehicles (in 1937) to his shop. He also had a moving picture show in the window presumably advertising goods and services." Apparently, the store also had its own three-piece band. Prior to the introduction of motorized vehicles the store had stables at the rear that housed their horses and carts. The purple star on the map below shows
the block that the store occupied.
 According to the document
referred to above, "The
hours
of
work
for
staff (after 1930's) were Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 9
am - 6 pm. Wednesday 9 am - 7 pm. Friday 9 am - 7 pm. Saturday 9 am - 8
pm and the wages at 14 years were 5 shillings a week. At age of 16 this
went up to 17.6d plus ½d in the £ commission. At the same time buyers
got between £2-£3 a week. The uniform was navy and yellow or navy
and silver and in the afternoons the staff would change into evening
dress."
The Greater Manchester County Records Office
also has a document that recounts the experiences of Blanche Baxter who
worked at the store from the age of 14, starting in 1936.
She also said that Paulden's was an innovative store and added that it
was, "the first
to bring Danish pastries to England. They were the specialist shop for
carpets, lino and soft furnishing. They ran a lot of competitions -
Shirley Temple look-a-likes, Mannequin parades. (they had duplicate set
of the crown jewels on display in the shop). At Easter they built a
farm in the basement and children had to guess the number of Easter
eggs in order to win a puppy. At Christmas staff used to visit
hospitals in the area in a carriage and four dressed as snow white and
the seven dwarfs."
Paulden's
1925
Three years after that
photograph was taken the store was taken over by Debenham's although it
continued to trade as Paulden's. The building was rebuilt in 1930
and it apparently escaped disaster in 1941 when it received a direct
hit from a bomb that went straight though the lift shaft doing little
damage.
In 1957 the store had a major refurbishment and on the Sunday before it was due to re-open a fire broke out that completely gutted the building. The links below show the scene as firemen were fighting the blaze and the front of the building collapsed. Initially Pauldens moved next
door and set up business in the neighbouring Drill Hall.
Another incident occured at the site after the fire when a
double-decker bus was involved in a crash and ended
up falling into the exposed basement of the store. In 1959
Paulden's reopened in Market Street in the former Rylands Warehouse
that today is home to Debenhams. You can see their name on the
side of the building.
 Today the site of the original
Paulden's Department Store, that burned to the ground, is occupied by
the Manchester Metropolitan University's Cambridge Hall of Residence,
see below.
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