Andrew Johnstone, the great grandson of Station Master Arthur Ellis, paid a visit to Peterborough Archives recently and spent a couple of hours looking through the Women’s United Total Abstinence Committee (WUTAC) resources. Arthur Ellis was the Station Master at Peterborough East Station at the time of the temperance café and he would have assisted with the day to day running of the cafe and had regular contact with the WUTAC ladies.
Andrew was delighted to find an invoice signed by Arthur for the supply of coal for the stove heating the cafe, for which he charged £1–0–0 (i.e. 20/- ) a ton, or 5p for 112lbs. Andrew said “These letters and the invoices for all the expenses of the Cafe are a wonderful local history resource about traders and prices in Peterborough during the Great War.”
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