The story of Caroline Goldsmid

FROM ALMOND CAKES TO ALMERIA GRAPES

The story of Caroline Goldsmid: Ryde’s exotic fruit pioneer

Words James Rayner Illustration Julie Sajous

Standing outside Number 2 Union Street in 1857 you might have noticed a new sign above the shop door, announcing the arrival of C. Goldsmid (from London), Fruiterer, Confectioner, and Italian Warehouse. This new retailer, like a number of Ryde businesses at the time, was Jewish-owned (curiosity dealer Moses Solomon and tailor Samuel Moses were both just around the corner) however, unlike the others, C. Goldsmid was run by a woman. Her name was Caroline, the daughter of Lamert Goldsmid, an ‘orange merchant’ living in Newington Causeway, South London - a man whose origins, despite conflicting paperwork, seem to have been in Central Europe. In her midthirties, Caroline left the family home and set sail for the Isle of Wight, taking over the keys to Number 2 Union Street, Ryde, and opening the doors of her new enterprise. Inside, shelves were lined with almond cakes, macaroons, orange and lemon chips, bottles of British wine and flasks of Florence oil (a prized olive oil from Tuscany); and fresh desserts could be made to order - nothing too unusual for the town’s Victorian inhabitants. However, within months of the till beginning to ring, Caroline must have sensed an opportunity, quickly restyling herself as a specialist ‘foreign fruit dealer’. Soon her stock included peaches, apricots, greengages, and hot-house grapes as well as Lady Apples shipped over from America and pineapples and pomelos from the West Indies. At any one time, she could have as many as six different types of orange, including blood oranges, egg oranges, tangerines and Seville oranges picked from trees in Malta, Spain, Italy and Portugal. She marketed well too, creating a buzz by printing notices in the local papers announcing her exciting new deliveries, such as her ‘new importation’ of Chinese lychees - a ‘deliciously aromatic fruit’. Whilst risky, her new niche paid off, and far from being too soon for Islanders of the 1850s, it seemed to be exactly what they were looking for. The business thrived, and Caroline thanked locals for their ‘kind patronage that has hitherto been so liberally bestowed on her’. By 1862, the shop windows were still filled with everything from pods of Brazil nuts to Cadiz melons and preserved ginger, but the business now traded under the name E. Goldsmid (probably her brother Edwin) and would only last a few more months before all records disappear. Two years earlier Caroline had married a French-born British Jew named Samuel Harris who worked as a carver and gilder. With pregnancy on the horizon and a relocation to Southampton and later Newcastle, this was to be the end of her entrepreneurial adventure. However, just before leaving the Island in October 1863 Caroline gave birth to her only child, Lillie Harris, at Ventnor and it seems some of her mother’s drive and independent spirit would rub off on her daughter, too. Lillie became a published author by the age of 13 with a book entitled Mama’s Fairy Tales and would later take the role of investigative journalist - even reporting on the Jack the Ripper murders.