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Know your town MacGregor’s Glasgow House

August 21, 2019 August 2019, Regular Features No Comments

Alec MacGregor erected the building now know as Kitchener’s in 1906. Alec was born in Glasgow in 1872. He entered the fabric trade learning weaving, spinning and  dyeing both cotton and wool fabrics. Experiencing continuing poor health he decided in 1902 to come to New Zealand to help improve it. 

He first set up a drapery business in Masterton. Then later moved to Martinborough where he erected Glasgow House in Kitchener Street, a building with four large rooms and large plate glass windows in the front. The front rooms were the shop and office with the back given to dressmaking and millinery.

A wide range of products were on offer, advertised as : drapery, millinery, men’s wear, mercery, boots and shoes. Along with running his business Alec served as secretary of the Waihenga Lodge and was a member of the Order of Druids. 

The  business was later sold to John Hodge who changed the name to The Top Hat and ran it as a tailoring made to measure business. This was eventually on sold to Bill Hitchings who returned it back to general drapery under the name Martinborough Drapery House. 

This  ran profitably until becoming a victim of the great depression when it, along with a number of businesses, was forced to close. Bill Hutchings found employment at Pain and Kershaw’s where he became drapery manager. The 1942 earthquake caused considerable damage to P&K and the Drapery Department which found a temporary home in part of Bill’s former shop. It remained there until the end of the war when repairs to P&Ks could be completed. The shop was by then owned by Dick Soughton who had converted it to a dairy and tea rooms . He had helped out by letting P&K have half of the shop for the drapery. 

Following the Recession a Mrs Webb had re-opened it as a tea rooms. She had sold this to Dick Soughton who added a dairy selling Frosty Jack ice cream. Dick’s son Guy son took over and made space for a shoe shop: Soughton’s shoes. 

The dairy was subsequently owned by Mrs Edwards and then Shirley Howard. Now with the dairy deleted and the food service ramped up it is Sue and  Bruce Sullivan’s business known as Kitcheners 

Mate Higginson

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