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Why not give me a ring? Sixpenny Jewellery at Woolies

We'll have a Woolworth wedding, Sweetheart you and I.
Everything except the grand piano, down at Woolworths we can buy.
We'll buy the wedding ring there, it won't be gold it's true
But our love is eighteen carat, so any kind of ring will do

From R. P. Weston and Bert Lee's hit song 'A Woolworth Wedding'

Our special version of the melody was very kindly played for us on a grand piano
by Harry and recorded by Simon of QMedia Group. Thank you, gentlemen.

Please activate the player if you would like to hear the melody of the song played on a grand piano

 

St Valentine's Day at Woolies was the highlight of the year for many a Sales Assistant. This picture was drawn by a colleague for the firm's Staff Magazine, 'The New Bond', in 1936. Click for a larger copy in a new window.

The Woolies jewellery counter never looked quite as spectacular
as this romanticised drawing by a store colleague, which appeared
on the front cover of the Staff Magazine, The New Bond, in 1936.

But with several hit films, including The Girl from Woolworths, telling
the story of shop girls finding true love with rich customers and
leaving the Threepenny and Sixpenny stores for a life of pampering
and luxury at the side of their handsome husbands, it's probably
little wonder that St. Valentine's Day had a special magic for the firm.

 

Company bosses were so amused by this spoof poster sold by the Inter Art Company of Barnes, S.W. London, that they turned a blind eye to the obvious copyright infringement throughout the 1930s. Click for a larger copy.

 

According to folklore, the main purpose of Woolworths Sixpenny rings
was to make it look as if 'Mr and Mrs Smith' were ... well, Mr and Mrs Smith
when sharing a room at the seaside for the weekend. Company workers
knew the bakelite (early plastic) jewellery as 'Gretna Rings' because
you'd have to be green to believe that they were made of gold.

For some couples the next stop after buying a Gretna Ring was
Gretna Green, where eloping couples in their late teens could marry
without the consent of their parents, who had control until they
attained their majority at twenty-one years.

Company bosses were happy to cash in on the good-humoured fun
poked at Woolies which saw sales rocket throughout the Thirties.
The leaflet above (which was about a foot tall, or 30cm), was
circulated by The Inter Art Company of Barnes in South West London,
and often sent as a Valentines Card to members of staff.

The Jewellery Counter girls serving members of the public in the High Road, Ilford store. This elegant fixture, dating from the 1920s was rare and considered too upmarket by Company bosses - but they were too tight to replace the ones already in place! Click for a larger version in a new window.

Joking aside, for a spell in the early 1920s actually Woolworths stores did
sell Gold Rings for sixpence as an opening offer, making a whopping loss
on every one. For a while they also invested in elegant counters like the
one above, still surviving in the Thirties after installation at Ilford, London
in 1924. But company bosses felt this image was too up-market and
came up with a different design (shown below) which appeared much more often.

A typical 1930s Jewellery counter from Woolworths, pictured at Maldon, Essex in 1935. Click for a larger copy in a new window.

 

The invention of bakelite in the mid 1930s allowed for great improvements in
the designs of jewellery sold, and prompted the installation of new counters
with bright lights above to show off the glimmering gems. Bakelite was an
early type of plastic, and for the first time provided a material that could
be shaped while molten and painted solidifying in the chosen form.
It was used to make many rings and brooches, of which the most
popular was butterfly shaped and brightly coloured in an imitation
tortoise-shell finish. Woolworths continued to sell jewellery until the 1980s.

We hope you've enjoyed our whistestop tour of just a few of the pictures
from our Woolies library. You'll find more before too long in our
new 'Original Virtual Museum', celebrating the stores' century at the
heart of the High Street. We're hoping to publish this on the
100th Anniversary of the opening of the first store, 5 November 2009.

For now, thanks for looking and for keeping Woolies at the
heart of the High Street for 100 years,
from one of the team who used to work there.

FWW MCMIX - MMIX Semper Fideles.

 

COPYRIGHT NOTICE:

This feature, is divided into a number of separate galleries of pictures.
Thumbnail pictures are displayed in the gallery. If you click on them
you can zoom in to see a very high resolution version of the image in a new browser window.
The images are © Copyright 3D & 6D Pictures, 2010 - All Rights Reserved.

The pictures shown may not be copied or reproduced without consent. Many appear in the book
A Sixpenny Romance, celebrating a century of value at Woolworths
which was published on 5 November 2009.

 

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