What was the name of the shop? The name is an acronym for James Jones and his son Ralph Jones, who opened the shop in Cardiff in 1920. It has been said that Jones and Ralph came up with the idea when they noticed workers at the local shoe factory "selling out their boots" to the factory for far below the cost of the factory's own. They began to make their own boots for this very reason, to make a profit themselves rather than pass on the lower cost of their product to the factory workers. There shoes quickly became popular and were purchased by such well-known people as King Edward VIII and Winston Churchill, both of whom happened to be running for office at the time.
A curious thing about the name Jones Bootmaker is that it came about due to Jones spending some time working in the Royal Air Force in World War Two for the British Army as a clerk with the title of "Bootmaker". Many think this is the source of the phrase "you're going to war... you're going to boots", which was used in reference to the shop. Jones Bootmaker also made army boots for the Indian army during the post-war period, but they proved too comfortable for the soldiers to wear so they were made again for civilian use.
So, we know the story of how the name Jones Bootmaker came about and now we want to know what was the name of the shoe store he established in Cardiff? In answer to that question we have to go all the way back to before the Second World War, when shoes simply referred to any type of shoe, and there was no specific category for them such as Military, Ladies, Commercial or Children's shoes. You could simply look at the shoes you had in your wardrobe and call them whatever you liked. So in those days the term shoe shop simply referred to a general shoe store. In other words, if you needed shoes you could just look for a shoe store.