Flinn's Jewellers - Broadgate / Warwick Row

Thanks

This is the reason I was asking, and I've just finished it: Items from old Coventry city centre: Flinn & Co watch or jewellery box

Cool

Two Flinns & Co. on Warwick Row? I can find references to Flinn & Co. at number 14 being jewellers, and Flinn & Co. at number 10 with no mention of being a jewellers but seeming like a job agency? http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/searchbna/results?memberlastsubclass=none&searchh....

Perhaps they were using the business address to recruit staff/workers for their family home?

Dunno, there was definitely a Flinn at number 10 because I've got a picture of it.

The adverts you refer to are dated 1951 - the GPO Telephone Directory for that year lists Flinn & Co, Jewellers, 10 Warwick Row, no others

So assuming 14 was correct they moved from 14 to 10, with some job recruitingness!

Yes, I can confirm that Flinn & Co jewellers were in Warwick Row in the mid fifties, as I recall at right angles to the Row and next to the Warwick Rd Congregational Church (URC) and Sibree Hall. I bought my fianc

You're quite correct, Prof In recent years it has been converted into the Warwick Road Church Centre - it's the white building here

I did a piece on it too

I see from the pictures that my memory played tricks, I thought the display window did not front onto Warwick Row but was at the side, but I was wrong. Strange after all these years I should think that but thank you both for the photos of Flinn & Co. I was christened in the Warwick Road Church, and my grandfather took up the collection plate as a steward on Sundays.

I seem to agree with you Prof that at least some of Flinn's windows were on the side. There was also another Jewellers nearby called Thorn's. I still have a silver bracelet bought from there in 1965.

Coventry 1940 As the area was cleared after the blitz, a strange sight in Broadgate was two large smoke-blackened safes amid the rubble. The heat of the fire had destroyed a family business and much more, had so distorted the locks that the safes had to be cut open on the spot when they cooled down. Inside were the remains of watches, jewellery, gold and diamonds. Paper money and documents had been reduced to ashes. The people that had supplied the articles took them back, and without charge to the jeweller cleaned and repolished or salvaged what they could. They came back to Coventry and was sold to during the bleak wartime years. The safes had been in the double-fronted shop of Flinn and Co, 14-15 Broadgate. The business was started by Oliver Flinn who became Coventry Mayor around a century ago, and over half century before the Germans arrived, making it the oldest watch and jewellery shop in Coventry. The firm moved to temporary premises in Warwick Row and then to a nearby permanent building. Family papers include a receipt dated 1900 recording the repayment of £1,328 including interest, to a Mr Singer (of the car family) who had lent Oliver Flinn the money to start the shop. The Flinns had shops in Earlsdon and Allesley. (From a CET book)

Brilliant Kaga!