FULLY justifying its nickname as “an Aladdin’s cave”, this was Gott and Butterfield’s, later Frank Butterfield (Keighley) Ltd, in the Royal Arcade, Low Street.
William Gott had started his ironmongery in Low Street itself in 1890, moving into the Royal Arcade in 1901 and taking Frank Butterfield into partnership in 1910. They subsequently branched out into household goods, bicycles and eventually camping equipment.
At the time of Butterfield’s closure in 1983, director Walter Greenwood had been associated with the firm for 62 years and co-director Harry Holmes for 46 years. “We never threw anything away right from the start,” Harry Holmes admitted.
On a personal note, as Keighley reference librarian at the time of the firm’s closure I spent an afternoon trundling four sackcart-loads of documents, ledgers and order books across town to the archives, while Cliffe Castle displayed an accumulation of old advertisements and such between-the-wars commodities as oxyacetylene refills for bicycle lamps!
The photograph has been supplied by Mrs Christine Sheald of Kirkheaton, and formerly of Keighley.
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