Locations marked on 1956 map.

Red: Location of W.A. Wilkinson’s Ltd in 1941 and site of the air raid disaster. 51 King Street and 10 George Street, North Shields.

Blue: Location of Wilkinson’s yard and stables. The business was transferred to this location after the disaster. It became a builder’s yard when Wilkinson’s went out of business in the mid 1960s. The buildings including the chimney stack were demolished in the 1980s.

Green: The site of Phoenix House, the home of W.A. Wilkinson and family. Following his death in 1924 the property was sold in 1928 and became an RAOB Club.

Move to King Street Hall

From the 1886 and 1890 directories he is at 51 King Street and by 1898 he has large adverts and is listed occupying King Street Hall at the corner of 51 King Street and 10 George Street in the east end of the town.

At this time the large Wilkinson family lived at Phoenix House, King Street just opposite the factory.

In 1900 tragedy struck the family when William Arthur Jr was injured by an explosion at the factory which shattered glass bottles. As a result he lost an eye as well as being badly cut around the face and neck. The injury did not however prevent him serving with the RAF during World War I. In later years William Arthur Jr became totally blind.

By the early 1900s, W.A. Wilkinson Ltd had become a firmly established and major employer in North Shields.

A Family Business

Following the death of its founder, control of the Company passed to his son Alfred Ernest. He ran the Company until his own death in 1939.

W. A. Wilkinson became a limited company in 1926.

War-time

Alfred Ernest’s son, also called Ernie, (Young Ernie) is believed to have run the company up until the time of the air raid in 1941.

William Arthur’s (Snr) daughter, Gertrude, married David Moffitt in 1919. Mr Moffitt was a company driver at the time of the bombing disaster in 1941. He is believed to have helped rescue people trapped in the basement shelter .

Demise

In 1954, W. A. Wilkinson’s brother, Joseph, sold his factory in Gateshead and bottles to Margaret Pearson of Sunderland. It wasn’t long before W. A. Wilkinson met a similar fate.

The North Shields business was sold in 1964. In 1900, Wilkinson was a big fish in the small pond of North Shields, but by the sixties they just couldn’t compete with the larger national companies that dominated the market.