I have a great interest in London’s past and love a good railway, tunnel or story of social
history. I moved to London in 1985 but my family history encompasses previous lives in
London. My Grandad was born in Hoxton, though he and his son, my Father, were both in
the Royal Air Force and so moved around a lot. My Grandad had talked of his father
working as a bespoke tailor around Cheapside.
With a surname of Macdonald our story obviously begins in Scotland but we’ve gleaned
that after a family emigration to Canada my great grandfather, who was born there, moved
back to the UK and eventually settled in London. He apprenticed as a tailor and was
‘discovered’ on the pension records of the Civil Service Supply Association (CSSA) during
family research undertaken by my sister.
My sister’s friend told me that she’d regularly visited the CSSA in the Strand during the
time she worked at the BBC. This was in the fairly recent past and so my interest was
piqued as to what the history of the CSSA is and what, if anything, remains now.
Googling produced a fair range of references, which are listed underneath. The best find
was a great article from an Australian newspaper, which was written by one of the
founding members. It had been electronically converted and was a very poor conversion
so I took it upon myself to correct it. I made a PDF of the article and it can be viewed
here:
The Story of the Civil Service Supply Association.pdf
In essence what happened was that two Post Office workers established that if they could
raise enough money to buy tea in bulk they could save themselves and their colleagues
money. This idea blossomed and soon they were supplying more than just tea. The
success was such that they opened the operation to any member of the Civil Service.
They ended with numerous outlets, the best known being the one pictured to the right.
For the full story read the above article; it’s fascinating and tells the story in detail.
“Erected for the Civil Service
Supply Association in 1876–7
to the design of Lockwood and
Mawson, architects, of London
and Bradford. The contractors
were Lucas Brothers of
Lambeth.”
Built circa 1927 when the
Association opened its doors to
the general public and became
a company like any other. It
had previously been a
members-only co-operative.
The Association stopped
trading in 1986 after a large fire
in this building. The shell still
stands and the clock still reads
‘Civil Service Supply
Association’.