STABLES, GEORGE (1851-1935)

STABLES, GEORGE, grocer; b. Portsoy, Banffshire, Scotland, 6 Nov 1851, s/o James Stables and Margaret Patterson; m. 1st, 1878, Isabella MacAllister, d/o John MacAllister and Susanna Elizabeth Wasson, of Newcastle, and 2nd, 1917, - Smith, of Amherst, N.S.; d. Newcastle, 25 Jan 1935.

After attending the grammar school at Ordiquhill in Banffshire, George Stables learned the grocery trade in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He came to Newcastle in 1871 and was employed for a time as a clerk in the store of his former townsman James Brown. In 1880 he founded the Stables grocery business, which fronted on the Newcastle Square. By 1886 he was also a licensed auctioneer. From the 1890s onward he was a frequent advertiser in the Union Advocate and other papers, designating himself in later advertisements as "The People's Grocer." In 1918, the year after his second marriage, he sold the business to his son James M. Stables and announced that he would be taking a tour of the West Indies and South America.

In 1910 Stables was one of the five directors of the Newcastle Steamboat Co., of which Patrick Hennessy was president. During 1911/12 he was president of the Highland Society. He was a trustee of St James Presbyterian Church and a Mason. He and his first wife, Isabella MacAllister, had three sons, all of whom entered the grocery business, and three daughters. He and his second wife were living separately at the time of his death.