Photographs
Shops
BEDFONT. Edmonds, High Street. "Edmonds also had the cash office up stairs, there was a tube that went to the office from the shop floor with the cash and the change came back down to the shop floor, they did knot keep cash in the shop." Ray Norwood in posting to RMweb 4/12/13
BURNT OAK. Co-op. Cash carrier in the 1940s. Bren Thompson Simpson in posting to Facebook
EALING. W.J. Daniel and Co., 102 Uxbridge Road. "Miss Lydia woods .. went towards the other end of the counter to use the cash railway." West Middlesex Gazette, 20 Feb. 1932, p. 11
EDGWARE. Stanley J.Lee (drapery emporium). Wire system. "Vicar to Dad's Army: the Frank Williams story". Also Join me in the 1900s website
ENFIELD. Co-op. Cash carrier. Shirley Best in posting to Facebook
FELTHAM. Sainsburys. Cash carrier. (Posting to uk.rec.subterranea newsgroup, 8/3/00)
HARROW. Stanley Lee (dept. store). "The money taken whizzed round in little cash carriers, at ceiling height, and brought your change." Harrow East website
HARROW. Sopers (dept. store). Pneumatic tube system. Rev. Robert Bell
HOUNSLOW. Trebles. Church Parade, High Street, next to the junction with Lampton Road. Closed in 1963. "Treble’s was very old-fashioned, even in my day ... The best thing, though, was the payment system, which used a ‘cash railway’. The assistant would take your money, it was placed in a little metal container and whizzed away to the cashier via overhead wires; receipt and change returned the same way." Peoplegen website
HOUNSLOW. Alice & Jennie Wood, High Street. "A. and J. Wood's, the family drapery shop, which has stood on the site of an old cottage at the western end of Hounslow High Street for more than 55 years, is shutting down tomorrow... The shop has retained its character right until the last, even keeping the old overhead 'railway' system of sending cash from the counters to the cashier's box. (Although in recent years this was only to fascinate little children.)" Middlesex Chronicle, 22 May 1959, p. 8
MILL HILL. A draper's shop. "There was a draper's shop opposite Woolworths, which had a brown, lino floor and the assistant put the money in a cylindrical tube which was attached to an overhead wire. The tube went whizzing across to the cashier, who sent back the receipt and any change in the same way." Mill Hill Preservation Society website
NORTHWOOD. Co-op. Cash carrier. Harold Jones in posting to Facebook.
SOUTHALL. Edmonds. "They had the cash tube fly across top of shop to cashier cash .and change came back on wire tube.where money was put in..for customer" Yvonne Butler posting to Southall Message Board, 8/1/14
SOUTHGATE. Evans and Davies. "Evans and Davies had an ingenious system for payment... There was a central cash desk from which radiated overhead wires to the various counters, along which went small, round, screw top wooden containers." R. Mott and B.M.Griffith Williams. A Southgate boyhood. (Edmonton Hundred Historical Society), p. 19
UXBRIDGE. Carrick and Coles. "The enterprising firm of Messrs. Carrick and Coles, of Uxbridge, have adopted Lamson's American cash railway system throughout their various departments." Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette, 15 Dec. 1888, p. 5
UXBRIDGE. Co-op."The shop assistants would write out the Co-op cheque and add the customer's number. As there were no tills the money was sent up to a cash office via an air-powered Lamson chute. Customers then had to wait for their change to come whizzing across overhead." Yours [magazine], 10-23 Mar 2009.
UXBRIDGE. Randalls, 7-9 Vine Street. Lamson pneumatic tube system with seven Pneu Art terminals and cash desk. Restored to working order in 2013. I visited on 6 July 2011. Photographs. Shop closed 31 December 2014. Guardian website 30/12/14. The building was sold to a property developer, Inland Homes, and it is understood that the pneumatic tube system is to be at least partly preserved.
• "Last week, John Randall .. contacted the Gazette... The shop still has a working Lamson machine... The machine uses compressed air to shoot cylinders up and down tubes to all levels of the shop. Within seconds cash can be sent via the network from floor to floor... The Lamson machine is in fact a dying device of the 1930s. One man who witnessed the installation of the machine in 1938 is Alec Randall, joint owner of the family run business... Mr Randall said the machine is in perfect working order and is still regularly used to send bills and cash upstairs to the next floor. He added: 'The machines can still be found in some stores in London and on naval battleships .. but they are fast disappearing.' ... Fortunately Randalls has no plans to get rid of its valuable machine. 'It saves us plodding up and down,' Mr Randall joked. Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette, 2 Sep. 1992, p. 12 (with 3 photographs)
• "To the west of this bay is the open cash office, the focal point of the pneumatic tube cash system which still remains in place, although no longer in use." British Listed Buildings website (Grade II listed, October 2008)
• " Officers would look into preserving 'Lansom [sic] cash tubes' as they were of a historic nature and value." Hillingdon Planning Committee, 29 Mar. 2017
UXBRIDGE. Suters (later Owen Owen), High Street. "By the opening of the second of the three sections of Messrs. Suter's great store .. another ten thousand square feet have been added to the floor spaace... One room of large dimensions will have the name of the Central Cash Railway Station. This is the terminus for cash received from some forty stations, and represents a masterpiece of organization." Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette, 3 Dec. 1937, p. 29
• "Apart from the automatic cameras, it also sported a Lamson machine. This wonderful contraption used compressed air to send cylinders containing cash, receipts and the like hurtling between the departments and cash office via a network of pipes. Shop assistants requiring change would pop an advice note in the heavy cylinders with their twist openings and coloured felt ends, and pop them into the loudly hissing tube by the till. There were many rumours of loose notes blowing around in the labyrinth of pipes, but I have yet to learn if there was any truth in them. Sadly, the equipment was stripped out of the store in the mid 1970s, but here and there a sawn-off pipe can still be seen." Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette, 26 Aug. 1992, p. 12
• "The 'Lamson' system involved a network of pneumatic tubes running from every department in the store up to the 'Lamson room' referred to by the Middlesex Advertiser in 1937 as the 'Central Cash Railway Station'. According to the 'Advertiser' 40 tubes terminated in the room - Hilda remembers that there were 'a couple of dozen'. Each time a sale was made a copy of the sale invoice plus the payment were rolled up together and placed in a cylinder which was inserted in the end of the tube which terminated behind the counter in the department. A lever was pulled which closed the cap on the end of the tube and released compressed air which pushed the cylinder all the way along the tube up to the Lamson room where it popped out into a tray and was dealt with by Hilda and the other clerks. The Lamson system was 'two way' and the change for the customer would be returned to the department via a 'down' tube." Philip Suter website with photograph of cash office.
UXBRIDGE. Warren and Beck. "Cashier required, used to Lamson pneumatic cash desks. - Apply to the Manager, Warren and Beck, Ltd., High-street, Uxbridge." Uxbridge & West Drayton Gazette, 20 Nov. 1936, p. 2
WEALDSTONE. Sainsburys. Cash carrier in mid-1950s. (Lynne Tann-Watson)
WEMBLEY. Killips, High Road/Lancelot Road. "The money on wires system I remember was in Killips' store in Wembley - long since gone." (Viv in posting to Whirligig message board, 21/11/04)
• " I remember being fascinated by the zooming air pressured tubes used for putting money in and whizzing up to the cashiers office and the receipt and change coming back to the counters." Lynda Meek on Francis Frith website
indicates systems which
are still there (as far as I know) though they may not be working.