Charles Ager, Ltd.

Life was hard for farmers in the early nineteenth century, by the late 1820s poverty to the point of near starvation had county families looking for other ways of making money. Charles and Walter, the Ager sons, who were tired of their miserable existence in the Northamptonshire village of Irthlingborough, decided to try life in Coventry. In March, when the rough roads and lanes were passable they set off, carrying their few clothes and food for the journey. Twice they begged lifts from friendly carters, but covered most of the 45 miles on foot, resting in barns and keeping their eyes open for foot-pads. After several weary days and uncomfortable nights they saw smoke hanging over their still-distant goal. Coventry’s three great spires pierced the sky-line; foot and horse traffic increased and soon they were striding into the city through an arched gateway in its breached wall. Charles, whose clever hands had made him the family cobber since boyhood, was taken on by a bootmaker named Piggot, with premises in High Street.W alter had different ideas and sought other work but Charles quickly took to the craft of a ‘snob’ with skill and enthusiasm. Among the staff employed by Mr. Piggot was Mary Nightingale, daughter of a Warwickshire yeoman farming at Corley Hall. Charles admired her for a while then proposed. They were married in 1838. In 1840 they opened a small shop in West Orchard; the carefully painted sign-board read “CHARLES AGERS”, thus founding a family business which spanned a century and a half.