The Wilson ironmongery shop was located at 14 & 16 Cheapside – a shopping thoroughfare in Halifax, Yorkshire. The founder, James Wilson (1832-1896), was born at Halifax, the son of Joseph – a plumber and glazier – and his wife, Ellen. James was baptised at Pellon Lane Baptist Chapel at Halifax.  He was apprenticed as an ironmonger. According to later advertisements, he established his ironmongery business in 1857. In the Census (1861), he was living at Cheapside, with his wife, Frances, and employing an apprentice. He became a town councillor in 1883 and Alderman in 1895. He was a dean and trustee of Trinity Road Baptist Chapel. He died soon after an operation for an ‘inward growth’ on 19 March 1896 at his residence, Ferndene, Savile Park Road, Halifax (Huddersfield Daily Chronicle, 30 June 1896). He was buried at Halifax General Cemetery, leaving effects of £4,267. The Cheapside business passed to his son, Robert Henry Wilson (1858-1926). Wilson’s sold a wide range of household goods from gas light fittings to glassware, pots and pans, and cutlery (doubtless sourced from Sheffield).

Robert later retired to Bexhill-on-Sea, where he died on 27 February 1926, leaving £10,936 gross (net personalty £9,547).  His son, Arnold, was the next ironmonger in the family, but by 1936 the Cheapside business had passed out of the family’s hands.  In that year, James Wilson & Son (Ironmongers) Ltd was registered, with a nominal capital of £2,000.  The directors were Annie Womersley and Lucy Womersley, both of Meadowcroft, Lightcliff; and Frederick Amos Pearson (1879-1959), of Summergate Place, Parkinson Lane, Halifax (Halifax Daily Courier & Guardian, 22 February 1936).  Pearson had started at Wilson’s in 1898 as a warehouseman, before becoming a traveller, then manager, and finally managing director in 1938. In 1950, when the ownership changed hands again, Pearson stayed on as an assistant. He retired in 1954, aged 74 (Yorkshire Observer, 7 January 1954). He recalled how Cheapside was ‘as narrow now as it was then’, and how ‘there were no buses then, and even at a later date when the trams were operating … journeys had to be done on foot. I remember walking 20 miles in one day to sell various tool sets’ (Halifax Daily Courier & Guardian, 6 January 1954). The Wilson shop at Cheapside continued to trade into the 1960s and was not wound up until about 1990.