Viva Lewes Issue #156 September 2019

INSIDE LEFT
SMALL STEPS
This month’s picture from Reeves, taken in
summer 1950, will be included in the photographic
studio’s latest lightbox show (see
page 72), which takes a look at the extensive
shopping facilities available to Lewes residents
in years past. It shows the interior of Russell
& Bromley, located at 187 & 188 High Street,
now home to the Tourist Information Centre.
Albion Russell was the son of a Chiddingly
bootmaker, who moved to Lewes in 1846 to
set up his own business at 37 High Street,
‘Albion Russell & Son’. He opened in bigger,
more classy premises on the corner of the High
Street and Fisher Street in April 1862. Albion
sounds like an interesting chap, a talented artist
and wood engraver, as well as an expert in
floriculture.
He employed an apprentice, George Bromley,
from Hastings, to work in the shop. George
soon fell for Albion’s daughter, Elizabeth, and
she for him. They married in 1873. The young
couple moved to Eastbourne in 1880 to set up
their own shop, the first to bear the name ‘Russell
& Bromley’ above the door.
George died in 1897, but Elizabeth lived on until
1937, thus witnessing the company’s steady
growth, spearheaded by her son Frederick, who
realised that there was more money in the sale
of shoes than their manufacture. He moved
the company HQ to Bromley, in Kent, and
opened 20 more stores, handing the reins over
to his sons, Keith and Michael in 1943. They
expanded further, taking over the parent company
in 1947, so ‘Albion Russell & Son’ became
‘Russell & Bromley’.
The Lewes branch is long gone, of course, but
Russell & Bromley, with flagship stores in Oxford
Street and Knightsbridge, remains a much
respected national chain – and Theresa May’s
favourite shoe shop. It’s still run by the Bromley
family, a dynasty begun when a young Hastings
apprentice took a fancy to his boss’s daughter in
Lewes High Street, nearly 150 years ago.
Alex Leith
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