1 November 2020
Family jewellers celebrates 90 year milestone
A JEWELLERS that has been run by just two families since it was founded is celebrating its 90th anniversary.
Boormans was opened in 1930 by Walter Withers Boorman at 28 High Street, Knaphill, where the Co-op store now stands.
The business, then called WW Boorman Watchmakers and Jewellers was a success through the next three decades.
Walter’s son Bob joined his father at the shop in 1959, having trained at the National College of Horology in London. The jewellers became WW Boorman & Son and Walter continued working full time until his death in 1980, aged 84.
After changing premises a couple of times in Knaphill, the business moved to its current site at 3 Broadway, on the corner of Englefield Road. The building was previously occupied by William Rugly’s shop, which was a drapers, milliners, stationers and newsagent.
Bob Boorman retired in 1985 and the business was taken over by Ron Smith, who had been a student trainee at Boormans before he ran Weekes Jewellers in Woking town centre.
In 2004, Ron sold the shop to Richard and Jayne Fairless, whose daughter Amanda worked at Boormans as a teenager in the early 1990s.
Richard, who lives in St John’s, said he has always wanted to own a retail business and Boormans’ long heritage attracted him to it.
“As soon as we told people we were taking over a jewellers in Knaphill, they said ‘Oh, Boormans!’ The name is synonymous with the village,” he said.
Richard has an engineering background and so took to doing the jewellery repairs, while Jayne does the accounts.
They owned a small watch shop in Guildford and Amanda ran that for a few years before she joined her parents at Boormans.
Because of the uncertainty created by the pandemic, the shop is displaying its Christmas stock earlier than usual and will be having special offers around the 90th anniversary.
“We have people who have come back after being away 30 years and say the shop brings back wonderful memories,” said Richard.
