OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

EDWARD DINGLE (1840-1928)

Mr Edward Dingle, the founder of Messrs E Dingle and Company Limited, was born in the parish of Linkinhorne, Cornwall, in 1840.

It would appear that young Edward got his initial interest in the drapery trade from his sister-in-law, Mrs Jane Dingle, the wife of older brother, Mr John Herring Dingle, who in the 1860s was a draper in Wellington Square, Callington, Cornwall.  He was sent off to London to learn the trade properly and returned to Plymouth in 1870/71, married and as a drapery assistant.  In 1880 he purchased a small drapery business at number 30 Bedford Street, Plymouth, from Mr John Adams and by the census of 1881 he was employing 13 drapery assistants, 12 dressmakers and two boys.

Edward Dingle died on Saturday February 25th 1928, at the age of 87 years.  The funeral took place at the Anglican Church of Emmanuel, Compton Gifford, on Wednesday February 29th 1928 and he was buried at the Plymouth Old Cemetery.  He was succeeded in the business by his second son, Mr Frank Hanscomb Dingle.

A Dingle's advert from October 1955.

Messrs E Dingle and Company Limited grew and prospered until 1971, when it was bought by the House of Fraser.  Mr Dingle would have been proud, and his parents even prouder, to have known that from his small beginning in 1880 the business was eventually worth over £6 million and that despite the efforts to suppress the name it is still referred to by older Plymothians as Dingle's.