This year marks 51 years since the “Maritimes’ Greatest Department Store,” Manchester, Robertson, Allison in Saint John, N.B., closed after 107 years. No store in the region, perhaps in all of Canada, could be said to have had more of an impact on the merchandising of Christmas. By its heyday in the 1950s, it had grown from one shop at 48 Prince William St. in 1866 to 13 buildings on King and Germain streets in Uptown Saint John.
The store had an unexpected journey. “When James Manchester, James Robertson, and Joseph Alison combined their talents to open a small shop on Prince William Street, they were probably not too interested in the Christmas season and certainly never gave a thought to Santa Claus,” said history buff Valerie Evans in a 1996 reflection on the store’s history in New Clarion Seniors magazine.
On Dec. 13, 1866 a promotion in the Saint John Globe and its competitor the Saint John Daily Telegraph read “A list of useful and fancy articles suitable for Christmas presents!” No mention of Santa, but that was about to change.
The first Santa
City merchants began to promote December as season of gift giving as early as the 1850s. Jardine’s boasted in 1877 that it was marking its 42nd year of Christmas promotions, but it rarely mentioned Santa. In 1883 Blackadar’s, a general merchant on Union Street, advertised in local papers that “Santa Claus in Life Size,” would appear and urged parents to “bring the little folks” and “see Santa Claus Going Down the Chimney.” This, however, was a static display, not a live person.
There is no record of a live Santa in Saint John until MRA’s had him appear in the store on Dec. 17, 1887. According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, Santa was the featured attraction in the MRA’s King Street showroom window “climbing out of a chimney of a miniature house.” It also noted that the “street was black with an expectant and youthful audience,” and described Santa moving to the adjacent showroom window and proceeding to “fill the stockings hung up in the dining room.”
That evening, at his second appearance, the crowd wouldn’t disperse until someone called police. In the crush of people, ladies were fainting in their quest to see a live Santa. The following week, Santa appeared daily in the store’s Toyland until Dec. 23, when MRA’s advertised he had asked the firm to “release him from further appearances,” so he could prepare to “visit children throughout the city.”
Thus began the tradition of having a live Santa in department stores in Canada. Gerry Bowler, Winnipeg compiler of the World Encyclopedia of Christmas in 2000, recently confirmed he has found no earlier account of a live department store Santa in his continuing research on Christmas in Canada.
From 1887 onwards, a live Santa was a regular attraction at MRA’s. It was the mid-1920s before another neighbouring competitor, Scovil Bros., had a live Santa come to its store, for one appearance in early December. The jolly old gent was still unique enough that upwards of 2,500 children lined King Street for a visit with Santa, a tradition that continued into the 1950s.
Ann Roy was in charge of dressing Santa for his daily appearances in MRA’s in the 1960s. “His usual role was working in the boiler room, but at Christmas he became Santa,” she remembers. “He was very fussy about his beard. It was a very fine yak. His hat had to be placed just so. He had to look just right for the children, and he was a real gentleman with them.”
Just say charge it
With all the visitors coming to see Santa, MRA’s soon came up with a way to make it easier for them to shop. In the 1920s, long before widespread credit cards, the store offered a Christmas Club. Within a folded buff pamphlet, with green and red print, (use of colour being unusual for the time), it listed 300 gifts and encouraged shopping early for “better service and selection,” adding “Christmas stocks are now complete,” and “Early inspection is heartily invited.” The most important feature for many potential customers: “Just charge all your purchase to your Christmas Club account, with no payments due until after Christmas.”
Mary Munford, who as a teen, worked in the credit office of the store, was the beneficiary of an account in the store. Her paternal grandfather Frank Allingham bequeathed her $10 in credit at the store every Christmas during her youth. She recalled in a recent interview how her brother at age 13 applied for credit so he and a friend could buy bunk beds, and was granted same, as a neighbour who knew the family approved.
Another innovative idea occurred just after the Second World War ended, when many veterans were recovering from injuries in the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital in Saint John West. MRA’s response to the situation was to place a Canadian Legion Tree in the Men’s Furnishings Department and encourage shoppers to place gifts in what was called the “Vets in Hospital” campaign. The store advertised that 2,500 gifts were needed, and were secured in this unique promotion. MRA’s management also made clear those shopping for gifts could “buy anywhere, but place it under the Christmas Tree at MRA’s.”
Parade excitement
In 1950, MRA’s sponsored the first Santa Claus parade in Atlantic Canada, which became the most enduring of the store’s Christmas initiatives. That first parade was on a cold, windy Nov. 18. To this day, the city’s parade still runs on the third Saturday of November. Reports from 1950 give little detail of the scope of participation in the parade other than mentioning Santa, with clowns surrounding his reindeer and sleigh.
News reports said “thousands of excited children,” were in attendance and were “unaware it was raining, or didn’t care.” Media noted they lined the uptown streets and “screamed their little hearts out” as the parade began on King Street East. They continued to do so as it wound around King’s Square, down King Street, and circled via Dock Street to Union, then ended at the Germain Street MRA’s entrance. Reports describe that Santa was “wringing the water out of his long white beard” before he entered the Toyland section of the sponsor’s store.
The man in charge of the parade at this time was Ed Murphy. Looking back at his role, in a 1996 interview for my regular column for the Telegraph Journal, he said he began preparations for the parade each August and his “greatest joy was dressing the 50 kids who would accompany Santa and walk in the parade. It was just like going to heaven for them. The mood among the youngsters was electric.”
End of an era
National chains began to erode MRA’s dominance of retail in Saint John when Sears opened a competing store in 1955. In the spirit of the season, MRA’s eventually changed the parade route by adding two kilometers so it ended in the North End, near the competitor who also boasted of having a Santa and Toyland. By then, many competitors in the downtown core had a Santa too. Sears alone was unlikely to kill MRA’s, but when Kmart opened in 1965 and Woolco followed in 1967, the end loomed.
Greg Marquis is professor of Canadian history in the Department of History and Politics at UNB Saint John. Looking back at MRA’s long tenure, he said in a recent interview, “The loss of the classic department store in many cities, starting in the 1960s, was viewed as both a cause and symptom of the decline of the central business district, which produced a less livable and less vibrant urban core. Many cities tried to re-capture this sense of excitement-and draw shoppers back to the downtown — but the results have been mixed.”
One of the store’s last Christmas initiatives was in 1967, Canada’s Centennial year. That was the announcement that seniors in the community would have a chance to enjoy what MRA’s called its “Private Shopping Party.” Besides offering all customers a 10 per cent discount, the store also promised that to “add to the festive atmosphere your favourite Christmas carols will be played,” and that “Santa Claus has promised to come,” to provide “plenty of merriment.” Seniors were invited to “enjoy holiday refreshments served in the Main Dining Room, fourth floor, with the compliments of the department manager’s wives.”
The store had retained an aura of being a family business that took the needs and comfort of customers into consideration. It’s likely the reason MRA’s prospered for over a century, and is, even after having closed 50 years ago, still held in high regard and remembered fondly by those who were impacted by its operation for 107 years.