The 1921 census reveals Arthur William Dockrill was working as a storekeeper selling ‘sugary foods and tobacco’ out of the properties revealed here at 84 Dunstable Roadway.
By the 1930s, the shop is noted as a ‘corn merchant’ which possibly describes its shift into offering animal products.
After the war it is marketed as offering animals, pot plants and garden sundries.
By the time this photo was taken, in the 1950s, Arthur’s grand son, Jim Oliver Dockrill was at the helm of the operation which inhabited what was then 82 and 84 Dunstable Roadway.
By this time, it had actually ended up being rather a regional destination. An advert put in the Luton News in 1962 checks out, “budgies, canaries, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rats, tortoises, turtles, gold and expensive fish, parrots, macaws, cockatoos, mynas, and so on and so on. See them all at Dockrill’s”.
Different advertisements from around this time encourage Lutonians to “show your pedigree pups at Dockrill’s and offer them rapidly” and “If your budgie does not talk provide it Dockrill’s Seed. If he does talk, he’ll ask for it”.
The much-loved shop ultimately closed in the late 1970s.
Today, the structures that housed Dockrill’s are still in usage as furnishings stores – however are practically absolutely unrecognisable after more current modernisations.
> > Which previous Luton or Dunstable shop do you miss out on the most? Email memories to[email protected] co.uk for addition in the Luton News/Dunstable Gazette which includes routine The past short articles such as this.
