Building Name

Warehouse for Mr Leo Schuster (12 Sackville Street?)

Date
1860 - 1863
District/Town
Central, Manchester
County/Country
GMCA, England
Client
Leo Schuster Brothers and Company,
Work
New build

The chief markets for this Manchester shipping trade outside the East Indies are Turkey and South America, and as typical more especially of the latter branch we may take Leo Schuster Brothers and Company, one of the oldest-established shipping-houses in Manchester. The founder of this house was Mr. Leo Schuster, who began trading in Manchester some time before 1824 at 22, Charlotte Street. The warehouse was successively changed to 18, Mosley Street, 61 Mosley Street (1828) 50, Spring Gardens, and then, in 1850, with the altered title of Leo Schuster, Brothers and Co., to 33, George Street (architect Holden). Warehouse at corner of George Street and Nicholas Street vacated before March 1864).  From 1858 onwards the firm styled themselves shipping merchants, having also acted as agents for Pascoe, Grenfell and Sons, copper-roller manufacturers.  In 1866 (?) the house removed to its present premises in 12 Sackville Street, and eight years later (1874) its style was altered to Schuster, Fulda and Co. The partnership was dissolved in 1906. [William Arthur Shaw, Manchester Old and New, 1895 page 14]

Leopold Schuster (1791 – 27 February 1871), was a German-born British cotton trader turned merchant banker, best known as the Chairman of the London and Brighton Railway and then the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, and was part of the consortia which bought The Crystal Palace. He arrived in Manchester about 1816 and like many German Jews in Northwest England at the time, he converted his faith to Unitarianism. In 1855 he moved to London, and formed the merchant bank Schuster Sons & Co. in Cannon Street, City of London. Donated to the Anti-Corn Law League. Director of the Manchester and Salford Banking Company.

Reference           William Arthur Shaw, Manchester Old and New, 1895 page 14