Scales Narrative

Description of the scales

                          [Balance wedge]
                                            [v]
[Front side]

F.E. SHEPHERD          CLASSII                             CHAYNEY & Co
            &                                                                     145 HIGH St
        SONS                                                                  RAMSGATE
                                  TO WEIGH 20lb

[Reverse side]
                                        1907

We also retain a “14 LB” brass weight that went with the scales.

 Summary

In the early years of the twentieth century Will and Fanny Shepherd ran a butcher shop in Ramsgate in Kent on the south coast of England, where the scales were used to weigh the meat goods purchased by local customers in the shop (up to 20 pounds apparently). The inscription on the plate of the scales indicates that Fanny was the owner (perhaps for legal reasons) of the shop, running it with her husband and sons (Will,  George, Charlie, daughter Kitty, followed by Harry, Geoff and Tommy). Chayney was a chain of butcher shops. The address indicates the site of shop on High Street, which still exists.

[ed. note: The  meaning  of the "Class II" is not clear to me.]

On the reverse side the date of 1907 would appear to indicate the date of purchase of the scales, and that this occurred in England. Shortly after the family emigrated to Canada, taking the scales with them (see Comment below).

Donated by the Shepherd family to the Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, Museum (now the Jasper Centre, in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan) in the early 2000s in remembrance of Fanny Shepherd and to honor the pioneer women of the Western frontier.

From the time she arrived in Canada, Fanny, in addition to her traditional mother's job of raising the family, began to exercise her talents as a businesswoman.  The scales represent her spirit of entrepreneurship.  Over the years sheestablished a small store with petrol pump and post office, which was given the name West Plains. This was known not only throughout southwest Saskatchewan, but also appeared as the post office and community of West Plains on maps ofCanada and North America of the time.  Besides running her shop and post office as a successful enterprise, Fanny began to write for provincial papers and magazines, despite the fact that, as a girl, she had had access to little formal education.  Many of her stories and articles appeared in The Grain Growers Guide and can be read on our site. She also became politically engaged, campaigning for women’s rights to homestead.

Fanny’s scales were an integral part of her business. The store that her grandchildren remember was situated atthe north end of the long low building along the north-south road at the foot of the rise at West Plains. Her granddaughter, Joy Ringham Munn, daughter of Kitty, grew up a scant mile away, and remembered playing with the weights on the weighing pan on the counter in her grandmother's store. Joy ultimately. moved to the U.S. and was apioneer in early television with one of the first children’s television programs called "Through the Magic Window", whose inspiration surely included playing with the weights of these scales. Her other cousins growing up at West Plains have their own vivid memories. By the 1950s the old store had been converted to a bedroom for hired hands and visiting cousins, including this author, helping Jack and his wife Mary on the ranch. The spirit of Fanny was still felt behind the empty counter. Others have their own fond memories of the place and the part of the scales in the life of the family.

The scales thus survive as a symbol of the immigration to this area of Canada, and of the enterprise of the inhabitants in making the transition from the old country to the new. Fanny's family did get a better chance. Her children George, Charlie, and Tommy and their children were widely respected residents of the Battle Creek area in the years 1915 to 1950. After leaving in 1950, son George became the founding curator of the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon.  His son Gordon Greeley Shepherd of Toronto grew up on the ranch, and became a world leader in the astrophysics of outer space and an expert on the Northern Lights; his son Ted in turn became a leading professor on world climate change at the University of Reading, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society just over a century after the family arrived in Canada. Tommy’s son Jack Shepherd fought in the Second World War and became a Battle Creek rancher. After retirement he moved to Maple Creek and became a wheelwright, and was prominent in Fort Walsh history, the Maple Creek Legion, and provincial politics. His book Legends of Battle Creek is a classic. He died in 2004, widely loved. Stories of the family in Saskatchewan and beyond, and of the history of the region and its Indigenous peoples, are told in the books by George Shepherd, including West of Yesterday and Brave Heritage. 

The reason for the inscription on the scales is suggested by a comment in Fanny’s son Geoff’s memoir, when he surmises why the family brought the ungainly large scales from England when they emigrated:

"She also included a good set of butcher's scales and weights, two or three feet tall, solid brass and steel, with her name and the butcher shop address painted on it. I believe that she liked to have her business aptitude recognized.  We have the scales and weights yet."

The purchase date of 1907 suggests that Fanny was already planning possible emigration in 1908, and the inscription makes it clear that from now on the business was to be in the hands of her and her sons.

When the present writer made a family pilgrimage to Ramsgate in 1957, he found the butcher shop still going, with the apartment over it, and talked to the young owners.  He also tracked down the man (then around 90) in an old people's home who had sold them the business for the sum of 1OO pounds sterling. Near the shop was the school andplay yard where the boys (father left at age 9) went to elementary school. He also found the Grand Hotel that his father Geoff remembered and peering through the window saw the inscription over the great fireplace that his father used to recite: "Pile on the logs to make the fire great". A few steps away was the embankment overlooking the harbor, with the bannister through which bars father had remembered sticking his head, being careful to be able to pull it out again. Off in the distance across the water were the Godwin Sands, the notorious site of many shipwrecks. It was from here, in the gentle garden of England overlooking the sea, that Fanny and her family emigrated, drawn by the advertisements ofthe Canadian Pacific Railroad to begin a new life in the "cozy garden" of western Canada.

The scales thus symbolize the vision and fortitude, and business aptitude, of Fanny Shepherd, and indeed of allthose who made new lives in this part of the new world.
 

Gordon Murray Shepherd
(1933-2022)
grandson of Will and Fanny Shepherd
July 16, 2006
Updated March 28, 2021

Photo Credit: Jon Bowie. Fanny's butcher scales are on display in the Jasper Cultural and Historical Centre in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, Canada.