ARCHIVISTS will delve into the history of shopping in Liverpool at a special event in one of the city’s oldest department stores.

Experts will reveal the city’s 150-year retail history through the shopping habits of merchants’ wives, the Co-operative movement and the North West Film Archive (NWFA), thanks to Liverpool University.

Pauline Rushton, curator of costume and textiles at National Museums Liverpool, will introduce the clothes of Emily Tinne, the wife of a wealthy sugar merchant and ship owner.

Pauline said: “Emily lived in Aigburth and, unlike other wealthy people, she shopped from the top to the bottom of stores across the city in the 1920s and 30s, spending the equivalent of between £50-£200 each time.

“She loved shopping at Cripps, on Bold Street, which was so posh it didn’t have any window displays or price tags.

“Bold Street was known as the ‘carriage trade’ because only people who could afford a horse and carriage shopped there. She bought a lot of clothes from Owen Owens (now Tesco Clayton Square) and Bon Marche (part of the George Henry Lee building) and the Liverpool Institution of Blacklers (now Wetherspoons, on Great Charlotte Street).

“Liverpool was very much a shopping capital from the 1850s, as the city had a lot of wealth and millionaires to rival London and Manchester and Leeds.

“It was only after WWII that shopping became widely available to the working classes with less money.”

Archivist for the National Co-operative, Adam Shaw, will also reveal the history of the first successful Co-operative Society which began in Medlock Street, Liverpool, in 1885, with a membership of 38.

The NWFA will also show films of Co-op emporiums and markets.

TICKETS for the free event tomorrow at 4.45pm must be booked on 0151 794 2396.