People
Tim Lee is remembered in Leigh as the village coal merchant, the man who kept households and businesses supplied through the middle decades of the twentieth century. Yet his working life began somewhere quite different: among the dangerous buildings of the Powder Mills. Born at Charcott in 1902, Tim was only about fourteen or fifteen when he first went to work at the mills. His earliest post was in the Chemical Stores, and from there he moved on to riding as a mate beside a lorry driver before earning the driver's seat himself. In that role he carried gun powder on deliveries across the South East, a responsibility that must have demanded steady nerves from a young man barely out of his teens.
Another duty took him to Hildenborough Station, where he collected coal. That experience proved to be a seed for the future. When the Powder Mills closed in 1934, Tim did not look far for his next step: in that same year he set up his own coal business in Leigh. He would run it for roughly three decades, only winding it down in the 1960s. By the 1950s he and his wife were living at 3 Lealands Avenue, and the enterprise had grown to the point where it employed the two of them together with two full-time members of staff.
The story of the firm is unusually well documented, because two of Tim's account books, covering 1953 and 1959, were later given to the local history society and remain part of its record. They reveal the business from the inside. In 1953 the two employees were E. Stolton and C. Spender. E. Stolton was the better paid of the pair, taking home £7-10-0 a week, a figure that had climbed to £9-10-0 by the end of that year. C. Spender earned £5-10-0 weekly, rising to £5-16-0. Tim's own wage that year was £5-10-0, while his wife received £2-10-0 — modest figures that show how hard everyone worked for the sake of the firm.
Six years later the picture had changed. By 1959 the employees were D. Buckley and T. Beesley, each earning £11-10-0 a week, a considerable advance on the wages of 1953. Tim himself was doing well enough to own a new Hillman Minx, insured for £300 at a premium of £19-9-5d. His household cover tells a similar story: the house was insured for £2,000 and its contents for £750, with the combined premium rising from £3-7-6 in 1953 to £5-1-0 by 1967. The books also record the small running costs of the trade — National Health contributions of roughly five shillings a week for each person, postage stamps at 1½d, 2d and 2½d, a thousand envelopes for 3s11d, and regular payments to Southern Railway.
The customer lists show a thriving concern. The largest regular account was 'Smith' or 'Smith & Son', whose monthly payments ranged from around £500-£700 and could sometimes exceed £1,000. The South Eastern Gas Board was another steady client, along with 'Stanton', 'Healey' and 'Blackman', while Lord Hollanden, Tonbridge Water and Mountains appeared as occasional customers. In 1959 Tim's monthly income swung between £900 and £2,000 — a healthy trade by any standard.
The coal yard itself stood where Wheelwrights Cottage is today, so the site of Tim Lee's business remains part of the village streetscape, even though the lorries and coal sacks are long gone.