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George Stanley Fish (b. 1881) was one of a family long established in the jewellery and pawnbroking trades. The earliest reference in Post Office directories is to William George Fish (probably G.S. Fish's grandfather), pawnbroker at Church Street, Hackney in 1843. By 1848, Augustine T. Fish, a former partner of William George, had a shop in the Edgeware Road and George Lovell Fish, a shop in Cross Street, Clerkenwell. By 1861 William George had moved the Hackney business to Kingsland Road. It was in about 1870 that George Fish (G.S. Fish's father, born c. 1850 in Dalston) set up in business at 1, Marine Place (later known as 539, Commercial Road). These premises had been a pawnbroker's since at least 1865 in the occupation of James George Poole who had previously run a pawnbroker's shop nearby at 1 Heath Place. By 1875 he is shown as occupying 537, 539 and 541 Commercial Road. In the mid 1890s there were Fishes listed as pawnbrokers and silversmiths at Kentish Town Road, Kenton Street, WC, Edgware Road, Camden Town, Pentonville, Kingsland Road, Kingsland High Street as well as George Fish at 539-541 Commercial Road.
From about 1913, George Stanley Fish (then in his mid thirties) was operating as a pawnbroker at 9, Peckham Park Road, Peckham, and some of the records relate to this business which was operated by Fish and subsequently by his trustees until 1950. He took over the running of his father's Commercial Road business in about 1921. He had diversified into the clothing and furniture and furnishing trades by at least the late 1930s. The Post Office Directory of 1938 show him to be occupying 543 Commercial Road as a cycle agent and 1, Heath Street (now Head Street) as a wardrobe dealer, as well as 539-541, Commercial Road. The Pledge Department was at the rear of 541, Commercial Road (entered from a door in Head Street). There is a photograph (a copy of which is in the Local History Library) taken by John Topham in the early 1930s, of women queuing outside this doorway. Fish died in the 1940s but the business continued trading as G.S. Fish or the Trustees of G.S. Fish (the trustees are named in some documents as H. S. Fish, E. G. Fish, and E. K. Wyman-Smart). The business closed in 1983 and the premises became a hardware shop called Tower D.I.Y. |