Wolfson and Shenkin

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Historic Glasgow oriental carpet partnership; predecessor of B. Shenkin & Co / Shenkin Group

Wolfson & Shenkin

Type Partnership (wholesale oriental carpets and rugs)
Founded early 20th century (documented by the mid-1920s)
Dissolved succeeded by B. Shenkin & Co (incorporated 1949; dissolved 2012)
Headquarters 58 West Regent Street, Glasgow
Key people Barnet Shenkin; L. Wolfson


Wolfson & Shenkin was a Glasgow partnership of wholesale oriental-carpet and rug importers. The firm is documented at 58 West Regent Street. One partner was Barnet Shenkin (1882–1950), a Latvian-born importer who later traded as B. Shenkin & Co. That successor company was incorporated in 1949 as B. Shenkin & Company Limited (SC027094) and, from the 1950s, sat inside the Shenkin Group with M. Mercado (Glasgow) Ltd and Clarendon Carpets Ltd.[1][2][3][4]

The partnership is not the same business as the furniture and mail-order empire of Solomon Wolfson and Isaac Wolfson (Great Universal Stores / later Next plc). Those Wolfsons were also Glasgow Jews and Zionists; a corporate identity between the two houses has not been shown.[5]

Trade

The firm imported traditional and contemporary oriental carpets for wholesale and shipping from Glasgow. Barnet Shenkin is named as the importer at Wolfson & Shenkin, 58 West Regent Street, and later at B. Shenkin & Co. His grandson Barnet Joseph Shenkin later worked in the family rug trade before concentrating on competitive bridge.[1][6]

The 1925–26 Glasgow valuation roll lists Wolfson & Shenkin, carpet importers as occupiers of an office at 58 West Regent Street, yearly rent £60. The proprietor of that stair was William Anderson of 30 Sutherland Avenue. Neighbouring offices at the same number included Rodie, Barras & Aylmer, writers, and Thomas Queen, commission agent.[7]

A later trade account of the Shenkin Group said the family’s involvement in carpets “stretches back to the early part of this century.” Rapid post-war growth is dated to the early 1950s, when Leonard Shenkin (“Lennie”) and Bobby Mercado agreed a partnership “over a game of bridge.” M. Mercado (Glasgow) Ltd became a large single-unit wholesale operation; B. Shenkin & Co Ltd specialised in imports; Clarendon Carpets Ltd manufactured. After Mercado’s death in 1967 the group moved to Colvend Street, Bridgeton.[3]

Barnet Shenkin is independently named as the importer at that address, and later at B. Shenkin & Co. The roll does not name the Wolfson partner.[1]

Addresses

Address Use Date Source
58 West Regent Street (office) Wolfson & Shenkin, carpet importers; rent £60; proprietor William Anderson, 30 Sutherland Avenue 1925–26 Glasgow VR, NRS VR010201368 p. 269 (VR102/1368)
44 Buchanan Street (warehouse) Wolfson & Shenkin, importers; gross £70; same stair as Kodak at 46 and Earl & Earl at 42; proprietor Thomas S. Cuthbert and another 1935–36 Glasgow VR, NRS VR010201558 p. 132 (VR102/1558)
25 Queen Street (machinery) Wolfson & Shenkin, carpet importers, as proprietor (occupier: proprietor); gross £1 15s. 1940–41 (supplementary) Glasgow VR, NRS VR010201674 p. 82 (VR102/1674)
Colvend Street, Bridgeton M. Mercado (Glasgow) Ltd / Shenkin Group from 1967 Herald
25 Moray Place (now 52 Marywood Square) Barnet Shenkin home c. 1925–after 1949 Bygone Bungo

By 1935 the partnership had left the West Regent Street office for a warehouse at 44 Buchanan Street. In 1940–41 it also stood as proprietor of machinery at 25 Queen Street. Those two frontages enclose the 1841 merchant courtyard later roofed as Princes Square (opened 1988). The rolls do not use the name Princes Square; they place the firm on that block before the mall conversion.[8][9]

Partners and family

Barnet Shenkin

Born Daugavpils, Latvia, 1882; died Glasgow (Govan), 1950, aged 68. Married Freda Shenkin (née Monfried / Monfred, born Riga 1892) in the Gorbals, 1914. Lived 66 Govanhill Street (1913), 38 Garturk Street, Govanhill (1921 census, with mother Buna and children), then 25 Moray Place. Children included Arthur Manfred Shenkin (1915–2002, psychiatrist), Louis Shenkin (1917–2003, stayed in the carpet business more than sixty years; chair of the British Bridge League), Leonard Shenkin (born 1919; married Sarah Sar 1949), Percy Shenkin (1922–2001) and Flora Shenkin (1924–2017).[1][2][10]

Louis Shenkin was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School, began dentistry, then joined the firm. His wife Mamie Shenkin wrote a history of Glasgow Reform Synagogue (1934–94). Grandson Barnet Joseph Shenkin (born 1950) also worked in the rug business.[1][6]

L. Wolfson

The firm name and later communal lists point to an L. Wolfson as the other name on the partnership. In January 1928 B. Shenkin was elected hon. treasurer and L. Wolfson, M.P.S., of 118 Kenmure Street, Pollokshields, hon. secretary (pro tem) of the newly constituted Glasgow Zionist Organisation. M.P.S. is the pharmacists’ designatory letters; that L. Wolfson may be the trading partner, or a namesake active in the same Zionist committee. He should not be merged, without a directory or partnership deed, with Isaac Wolfson of Great Universal Stores, who had already moved to London around 1920, or with Solomon Wolfson the picture-frame and furniture manufacturer of 16 Camphill Avenue.[2][5][11]

Jewish communal and Zionist activity

The Shenkins were prominent in Glasgow Jewry, especially Reform. Barnet Shenkin is described as an early leading advocate of Zionism in the city. In 1928 he was hon. treasurer of the Glasgow Zionist Organisation on its formal reconstitution under the English Zionist Federation constitution. He collected for the Jewish National Fund at communal events (for example the 1934 barmitzvah of Montague Nathan Wolfson, son of Aaron Wolfson of 61 Glencairn Drive, collected with A. Links).[2][12]

Arthur Manfred Shenkin combined socialism and Zionism as a student at Glasgow University. Louis and Mamie Shenkin were central to Glasgow Reform Synagogue (Queen Square, then Albert Road / Albert Drive; now Newton Mearns). Daughter Lorna Shenkin made aliyah; family albums later recovered in Argyll were sent on to relatives in Israel.[10][1][13]

That communal prominence sits in the same south-side Glasgow milieu as other Zionist trading families (Goldberg, Walton, Links, Wolfson/Woolfson). It does not, on the sources above, make Wolfson & Shenkin a branch of the Wolfson Foundation / GUS fortune.[14]

Successor companies

Entity Number Role
Wolfson & Shenkin unincorporated partnership Oriental carpet importers, 58 West Regent Street
B. Shenkin & Company Limited SC027094 (incorporated 1949; dissolved 2012) Import arm
M. Mercado (Glasgow) Ltd — Wholesale; partnership with Bobby Mercado from the early 1950s
Clarendon Carpets Ltd — Manufacturing arm of the Shenkin Group

B. Shenkin & Company Limited (SC027094) was incorporated on 2 June 1949. It went into administration on 27 November 2006; the administration ended on 26 August 2011, and the company was dissolved on 27 April 2012. Its last registered office was c/o KPMG LLP, 191 West George Street, Glasgow, G2 2LJ.[4][15] Later officers on the file included Antony Shenkin (born July 1955) and Michael Shenkin (born January 1953). Listings have also treated The Shenkin Group Ltd / FDL Carpets at Shawfield Industrial Estate, Rutherglen, as a related or successor trading style; that is a separate later vehicle, not the original partnership.[4][16]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Andrew Downie, "Barnet & Freda Shenkin", Bygone Bungo, 5 July 2020.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Barnet Shenkin, Powerbase.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Celebrating expansion with a Lang red carpet, The Herald (Ian Lang visit to M. Mercado (Glasgow) Ltd).
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 B. SHENKIN & COMPANY LIMITED, Companies House, SC027094.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Wolfson family, Wikipedia.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Barnet Joseph Shenkin, Powerbase.
  7. ↑ Valuation Roll for the City and Royal Burgh of Glasgow, 1925–26, Survey Book 444, Ward 13, West Regent Street, consecutive no. 144. National Records of Scotland VR010201368, p. 269; catalogued as VR102/1368 (Glasgow Burgh Valuation Roll: Wards 11, 12, 13, 1925–1926).
  8. ↑ Valuation Roll, Glasgow, 1935–36, Survey Book 450, Ward 12, Buchanan Street, consecutive no. 206. NRS VR010201558, p. 132; catalogued as VR102/1558 (Glasgow Burgh Valuation Roll: wards 11, 12, 17, 1935–1936).
  9. ↑ Supplementary Valuation Roll, Glasgow, 1940–41, Ward 12, consecutive no. 666, machinery at 25 Queen Street. NRS VR010201674, p. 82; catalogued as VR102/1674 (Glasgow Burgh Valuation Roll: Supplementary Roll, 1940–1941).
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Arthur Manfred Shenkin, Powerbase.
  11. ↑ Solomon Wolfson, Powerbase.
  12. ↑ Aaron Pinchas Wolfson (b 1892), Powerbase.
  13. ↑ Jessica Elgot, How a street cleaner gave a family back its memories, Jewish Chronicle, 23 December 2010.
  14. ↑ The Cousinhood of Scottish Zionism, MintPress News (secondary synthesis; use with the primary communal citations above).
  15. ↑ B. SHENKIN & COMPANY LIMITED (SC027094): insolvency, Companies House, accessed 3 November 2026.
  16. ↑ Michael SHENKIN personal appointments, Companies House.
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