• 1900 - 1930 Henry Steeles - Butcher
• 1930 - 1957 Tom Gilbert - Greengrocer & Game Dealer

The south side of the High Street at its eastern junction with St. George's Street was completely rebuilt as the Peterborough Co-op drapery department in the early 1930s and later numbers 46 to 51 were swept away by a modern development for Pearl Assurance just before Stamford became the first Conservation Area in the 1967. Because of this the numbering of the buildings was changed.
The original location of this shop was where 48 High Street is now.
This had not been a butcher’s before Steeles set up in business about 1900 and about 1930 it changed to be T Gilbert, game dealer and greengrocer.

Henry Steeles

Henry Steeles had been a wheelwright in Empingham for 15 years, then a farmer in Tickencote. His eldest son, John William Steeles, became a butcher and this may have encouraged him to set up the business on the High Streetreet.
His son worked for him until 1919 when he moved to 10 High Street, St Martin’s.
Henry Steeles died in 1930 and J W Steeles remained in Stamford until he retired about 1950.

Tom Gilbert

Tom Gilbert was born in 1886 in Stamford. His maternal grandfather and father had both been shopkeepers at 13 High Street.
When his father, a grocer, died in 1890 leaving a young widow with 4 sons aged 7 and under, she set up a Greengrocers business at 43 St. Leonard's Street.

As a boy, Tom worked for his mother but in his 20s it seems he went into engineering. He also served in the Lincolnshire Territorials from 1905 to 1914.
He was a Regimental Sergeant Major during WW I and was wounded in France. He married Margery Weatherington in 1918 and their only child, Sidney was born in 1919.

His uncle, W Herbert C Healy, traded as a game dealer and greengrocer at 44 High Street and it was this business that Tom took over after the war when his uncle died.

In the 1930s this building was demolished by the Co-op and Tom moved along the street to number 50 (now re-numbered as 48) where he continued trading until about 1957.
His only son, Sidney, assisted in the shop until he joined the Lincolnshire Regiment in WW II. He died serving in Italy in 1944.

Ken Ford, who did a great deal of research about shops in Stamford, started his working life as an errand boy for Tom Gilbert in the 1950s and recalled him as a good employer with a great sense of humour and as a keen cricketer. Tom and Margery lived behind and above the shop and Ken also mentioned that Margery was very kind to the young errand boy providing him with cocoa after his rounds in the winter. Tom died in 1967 and Margery in 1972.