It is will gratitude that we acknowledge the tireless efforts of historians such as Leona Austin who wrote extensively about the history of the Wooler Community.
We would also like to thank Dianne Brearley, the grand-daughter of Leona Austin, for her incredible efforts and determination to honour her grandmothers work and preserve the rich history of Wooler.
W.H. Bell’s General Store
From the Autobiography of Leona Austin
When my father, William Henry Bell, was about seventeen he left his home in Wooler and went to Kingston where he got a job as a “handy boy”. This was okay for a while but the business world was in Will’s blood. He wanted to open his own store but getting started was a problem. No money, no store. He talked to his mother Eustacia and his stepfather Nicholas McColl and soon a shelf was installed in the summer
kitchen, stocked with eight dollars worth of groceries. The customers came and soon the shelf needed to be restocked. The orders doubled and doubled again. This gave them visions of becoming wealthy.
To read more of the fabulous history of the Wooler General Store, please click here.
in his house in lower Wooler.