This photograph was taken by Charles Wardell in the 1950s and shows the premises of Currys and Walter J Rugg, the tobacconists.

Sandwiched between is the historic George Hotel, whose entrance was via the yard beneath.

Curry’s, I have written about before, but so far as I know, nobody has ever mentioned Rugg’s in connection with the history of Andover, and yet the name was part of Andover’s High Street from the end of World War I until 1970.

Walter J Rugg himself was born in Newport, Isle of Wight in 1860 and lived there all his life.

His father was James Rugg, a photographer of Upper St James Street, and for a time Walter followed the same business until, after marriage, he set up as a tobacconist in the same street as his father in the late 1880s.

In 1907, he went into partnership with two local businessmen and became managing director of Walter J Rugg and Co.

From then on, the business grew and branches were opened in several of the main towns in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, including Andover.

In first coming to Andover the company took over the premises of W J Banks, whose shops were at 38 High Street and 3 Bridge St.

Banks was also a tobacconist and the brother of Rosa Layton, whose china shop was directly behind the Guildhall.

An exact contemporary of Walter Rugg, William Banks and his wife retired to live in Marlborough Street in 1918.

A few years later, Rugg took on the more prestigious address at No 14 High Street as well, and so there were three branches in Andover during most of the 1920s.

Then the Bridge Street branch was given up; it briefly became a fruit shop under Dorothy Lywood, then Waller and Co the grocer, and after that part of Plummer Roddis.

Walter Rugg must have been an energetic character.

His 1943 obituary records that as well as being the managing director of the company he founded, he served on his local council in Newport for over 30 years, was a member of the Oddfellows, a volunteer for the Isle of Wight Rifles, a member of the cycling club, the bowls club, the Conservative association and also vice-president of the Wholesale Tobacco Trades Association in 1933-34.

In business, he was a constant supervisor of all the shop branches, making regular visits to each; in the accustomed language of the day, ‘he was known and esteemed by business acquaintances over a wide area [and his] quiet, courteous ways, unfailing geniality, consideration for others, and keen sense of humour made him a popular figure in all his associations.’

Evidently, the company continued to trade long after his death, although there may have been no family connection afterwards.

His only daughter Carol never married and although she was employed by the business, does not seem to have had an active role in its management.

In Andover, the two branches, one wholesale, the other retail, continued until the late 1950s, after which No 38 became Clunes the dry cleaners.

However, the shop at 14 High Street lasted as Walter J Rugg for another ten years or so and was eventually taken over by another tobacconists, Finlay and Co.

Readers may remember their tiny shop just above Marks and Spencer’s though they were a large national chain.

No 14 is now a branch of Cancer Research UK, a rather neat reversal from its previous history selling tobacco.

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