We thought we would update you on the continuing development of the Antique Dealer Map website antique dealers.leeds.ac.uk
We have been adding more data to the website, mainly, as many of you will know, focusing on adding names and addresses for antique dealers trading in Britain in the period 1900-1950 (with any branches in other countries too, as long as the dealership has been based in Britain at some stage).
There’s still an awful lot more data to add of course, and once the student volunteers return to the university in September we’ll have a new ‘cohort’ of helpers adding data to the website; so we hope to continue to increase the amount of data added to the website in the coming months. I should add that if anyone out there would like to help in adding data, please do email us and we can set this up for you, (after a little bit of training of course) – and besides helping with this important research project, you will also get your name on the roll of honour on the project website.
Anyway, I’ve been looking at the data we have already in the website and even with the partial data we have, there are some fascinating facts emerging from the map – one can already imagine how significant the map website will be as more and more data is added. The map, as many of you will know, can illustrate the clusters of dealers as they evolve in various locations, from a bird’s eye view, as well as down to street level. So, for example, here’s a view of the dealer locations in London, in and around Bond Street, W1 in the period 1900 to 1910.
Antique Dealer Map, University of Leeds.
And here’s the same view, for 1930, where one can see the expansion of the trade over the decades:
Antique Dealer Map, University of Leeds.
And the same view in 1950, which illustrates a continued expansion;
Antique Dealers Map, University of Leeds.
One can also focus on the development of dealer shops in many different towns and cities in Britain of course – here’s the map of Southsea, Hampshire, in 1900
Antique Dealers Map, University of Leeds.
Southsea became a very popular location for antique dealers during the period between the end of The Great War (1919) and the period after World War II, as this screen-shot of the Map in 1950 demonstrates:
Antique Dealers Map, University of Leeds.
The map also reveals some fascinating information on the popularity of particular shops as locations for antique dealers, perhaps also revealing previously hidden networks of dealers and of key relationships between dealers. For example, the famous dealers Stair & Andrew (later, Stair & Co) were located at 25 Soho Square, in a shop that was previously occupied by the well-known dealers Nico Salomon and the dealers Hamburger Brothers –
Antique Dealer Map, University of Leeds.
And when Stair & Co moved to Bruton Street, London in 1929, they were joined in the premises by the antique dealers, H.G. Rye, and Arthur Watson in the early 1930s. And when Stair & Co left the shop in Bruton Street in the 1940s, the dealer G. Jetley took over the shop.
Antique Dealers Map, University of Leeds.
And in Bath, for example, the shop of the well-known dealer and author R.P. Way was later occupied by the dealer Nat Ayer, before Ayer moved his business to Mount Street in London in the 1960s.
Antique Dealers Map, University of Leeds.
As we add more and more data to the Antique Dealer Map, more and more of these interesting relationships will emerge and be visualized, and this will help us to build up a fascinating ‘picture’ (quite literally) of the evolving antique trade in Britain in the 20th century.
Mark
antiquedealersblog 
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