Then and now: Lipton’s open up new store in Grantham high street in 1899

Lipton’s was founded in 1890 by Sir Thomas Lipton, who was born in Glasgow, writes Ruth Crook of Grantham Civic Society.

Lipton’s opened a new branch at 53 High Street in July 1899. They advertised in the Grantham Journal that they were tea merchants by special appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, with ‘a high-class selected stock of teas, cocoas, coffees, provisions, biscuits, jams and other goods, all of the choicest quality, at remarkably low prices’.

They continued ‘Tea, coffee, and cocoa planters, Ceylon, the largest tea, coffee and provision dealers in the world. Makers of soups, sauces, pickles, potted meats, extracts of beef and fluid beef, sausages, pies, bottled fruits, jams, jellies and marmalade. Fruit growers, cocoa and chocolate manufacturers, fancy cake and biscuit bakers’. Over one million packets of tea were sold each week.

Local branches other than Grantham included Lincoln, Gainsborough and Nottingham.