Ye Olde Oak is the leading hot dog brand in Britain.
Origins of the business
Robert J Smith (born 1832) was a cattle dealer from Boston, Lincolnshire. He had relocated to Liverpool, which was a leading hub for the cattle trade, by 1871.
Rowland James Smith (1864 – 1926) succeeded his father as head of the business. Operations were transferred to London.
Frank Rowland Smith (1894 – 1945) joined his father and the firm began to trade as Rowland Smith & Son.
An extensive trade in fresh meat from Europe was developed.
Trade in processed meat begins; Ye Olde Oak brand is introduced
The British government established a trade embargo on fresh pork from mainland Europe in 1926. As a result, Rowland Smith & Son developed a large trade in imported Dutch bacon. From around this time the business also began to import tinned meat.
The Ye Olde Oak brand was first registered for tinned meats in 1933.
Frank Rowland Smith had entered into retirement by 1939, and he was succeeded by his two sons, Robert Frank Rowland Smith (1902 – 1968) and Rowland William Smith.
Ye Olde Oak became the first canned meat brand in Britain to be advertised on colour television in 1956.
Ye Olde Oak became the major tinned ham brand in Britain, with one third of the market by 1973.
Struik Foods of the Netherlands began to supply Rowland Smith & Son with frankfurters from 1979.
Rowland Smith & Son is acquired by Hans Struik
Hans Struik (born 1940) acquired Rowland Smith & Son in 1984.
The company name was changed to Ye Olde Oak Ltd from 1985.
Ye Olde Oak hot dogs were found to contain just 50 percent meat, but less than that when collagens and fat were excluded, according to an investigation by The Food Commission in 2005.
Ye Olde Oak tinned ham was found to contain 37 percent water and just 55 percent meat, according to a study conducted by Which? magazine in 2005.
Acknowledgements
This article was produced with kind assistance from Rowland James Smith.
How did Domestos become the leading bathroom disinfectant in the world?
W A Handley establishes the Domestos business
Wilfred Augustine Handley (1901 -1975), was the son of a blacksmith employed in the Tyneside shipbuilding industry.
W A Handley trained as a dental mechanic. As a side project, he manufactured chemicals in his garden shed. He acquired sodium hypochlorite, a waste product from the local chemical industries, including ICI Billingham, and manufactured a powerful disinfectant and sterilizer, which he called “Domestos”.
W A Handley established his “Hygienic Disinfectant Service” in 1929. Assisted by his wife Ivy, he established door-to-door sales of Domestos.
Domestos was incorporated as a private company in 1936. A factory was established at Albion Row in Byker.
Stergene, designed for washing woollens, was introduced in 1948.
Domestos enjoyed distribution across Britain by 1952.
Sqezy, the first washing-up liquid in squeezable bottles, was launched in 1957.
W A Handley placed Domestos into a company which was valued at £250,000 in 1957.
Unilever era
W A Handley required expansion capital, and the business was sold to Unilever for £2.5 million in 1961. Unilever lacked a bleach brand of its own, and was attracted to the strong growth at the company. Unilever provided managerial expertise. Handley was retained in a managerial capacity, but stepped down as chairman in 1962.
The Domestos blue plastic bottle was introduced from 1963.
The Domestos marketing and sales departments had been transferred to London by 1965.
Domestos employed 700 people by 1965.
Domestos sales continued to grow, but the Newcastle factory lacked space to expand. As a result, production of Domestos detergents including Sqezy and Stergene were transferred to the Unilever factory at Port Sunlight, Merseyside, from 1965. The customer service office was relocated to London.
Domestos held a third of the British bleach market by 1968.
Handley died with an estate valued at £172,786 in 1975.
The Domestos factory in Newcastle upon Tyne was closed with the loss of 160 jobs in 1975, and operations were relocated to Port Sunlight.
Domestos was sold throughout Europe by the end of the 1970s. It was introduced to Australia from 1981.
Domestos is a leading product in the Unilever Home Care division. Sales doubled between 2012 and 2022. Domestos is sold in over 45 countries, sometimes under different brand names, such as Domex (India and the Philippines), Glorix (Netherlands), Vim (Vietnam, Argentina and Brazil), Promax and Klinex (Greece). According to Unilever, Domestos is a leading brand in nearly every market where it is sold.
Hill Evans was the largest vinegar brewer in Britain for most of the Victorian era. It grew to become the largest vinegar brewery in the world.
Hill & Evans
Cowell, Crane & Kilpin was established as British Wine manufacturers on Foregate Street, Worcester in the 1760s.
William Hill (1788 – 1859), a Wesleyan Methodist from Stourport, and Edward Evans (1788 – 1871), a Welsh chemist, acquired the business from Charles Kilpin (1770 – 1845) in 1829.
Hill and Evans branched out into the production of vinegar from 1830. Vinegar was an important commodity, used as a preservative in an era before artificial refrigeration. The vinegar-making process also utilised the waste from British Wine production.
A vinegar brewery was established at Lowesmoor, Worcester. Hill and Evans devoted themselves to producing the purest malt vinegar, and utilised the most efficient and up-to-date production methods.
By 1844 Hill Evans was the sixth-largest brewer of vinegar in Britain, and the largest producer outside of London. 153,875 gallons of vinegar were produced in 1848.
The sons enter the business
Thomas Rowley Hill (1816 – 1896) and Edward Bickerton Evans (1819 – 1893) had joined their fathers in partnership by 1848. It was the two sons, especially Rowley Hill, who provided the impetus and drive for the business to develop further scale. Rowley Hill had been unable to attend Oxbridge due to his Congregationalist faith, and instead received an education at University College, London.
Hill Evans produced 426,546 gallons of vinegar in 1852.
Dispute with The Lancet The Lancet, a leading medical journal, commissioned a chemical analysis of leading vinegars in 1852, and asserted that Hill Evans used sulphuric acid, a widely exploited adjunct which reduced maturation times. Hill Evans & Co refuted this, challenging the editor of the journal to conduct “the most rigid analysis of their vinegar…by chemists of acknowledged reputation”.
Eminent scientists such as Dr Lyon Playfair (1818 – 1898) were afforded free access to the entirety of the Hill Evans site, as well as their brewing records for the previous twenty years. The Lancet was subsequently forced to back down in a rare and humiliating defeat, and conceded that sulphate of lime, which occurred naturally in the local water, had been mistaken for sulphuric acid.
The sons become sole proprietors
Thomas Rowley Hill and Edward Bickerton Evans were the sole proprietors of the business by 1858. Rowley Hill was a generous benefactor, with a strong work ethic and high integrity. Bickerton Evans was a down-to-earth Baptist. Hill Evans established a reputation as a model employer.
1,048,229 gallons of vinegar were produced in 1858. The following year 1,208,600 gallons were produced, which positioned Hill Evans as the largest manufacturer of vinegar in Britain.
Lea & Perrins used Hill Evans vinegar to make their Worcestershire sauce from at least 1862.
The vinegar manufacturing process
In 1862 there were eight fermenting vessels for producing vinegar, each with a capacity of 16,000 gallons.
There were thirty vats, each with a capacity of 8,000 to 12,000 gallons, for the acidification of the brew. The brew would be held in these vats for around a month, with birch branches used to oxidise the liquid. When this process was complete, beechwood chips were used to fine, or clarify, the vinegar.
There were around twenty storage vats for the finished product, with five vats reckoned to have a capacity of 80,000 gallons each.
The finished product was actually of pale straw colour, so caramel (burnt sugar) was added as a final process to darken the product in accordance with customer preference in the English market.
Continued development
A new vat was introduced in 1863 with a capacity of 114,645 gallons. It was the largest vat in the world, and far larger than its closest rival, an 80,000 gallon vessel at the Guinness brewery in Dublin.
Built in around 1870, the filling hall on Pheasant Street contained the large vinegar vats used for storage
Hill Evans had an annual output of two million gallons of vinegar by 1866, and was by far the largest vinegar producer in Britain. Around 100 people were employed.
Hill Evans had established a London office and warehouse on the site of the former Boar’s Head Inn in Eastcheap by 1867.
Hill Evans was the largest producer of British Wine by 1868, with an annual output of 130,000 gallons.
Hill Evans constructed a small private railway branch in 1870, which linked it to the Great Western & Midland Railway.
The third generation enter the business
Thomas Rowley Hill and Edward Bickerton Evans retired from the business in 1874, and distributed a bonus of £1,173 among their 118 employees. They were succeeded by Edward Wallace Evans (1847 – 1901), Thomas William Hill (1843 – 1898) and Edward Henry Hill (1849 – 1911).
Edward Wallace Evans was an excellent businessman, and much of the subsequent growth of the firm was credited to him.
Hill Evans was accounted the largest vinegar brewery in the world in 1881, based on its annual production of two million gallons a year. A single mash tun had a capacity of 12,307 gallons. There were eleven fermenting vats, each with a capacity of 15,000 gallons. All told, the brewery had a storage capacity of 500,000 gallons of vinegar. The brewery held more than 100,000 casks.
Thomas Rowley Hill died in 1896. He left a personal estate valued at £170,322.
The works covered over six acres by 1900. The brewery had an annual capacity of 1.5 million gallons of vinegar, and was probably the largest business of its kind in Britain.
Hill Evans becomes a limited company
Hill Evans became a limited company from 1900, with a share capital of £150,000. The conversion allowed the business to pay out the share of the company owed to Thomas William Hill, who had recently died.
Edward Henry Hill became chairman and Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864 – 1958) of Lea & Perrins joined the board of directors.
In later life Edward Wallace Evans suffered from gout in his hands, and bandaged his hands in cotton wool on the advice of his doctor. Evans attempted to light a cigar whilst reading a letter, and accidentally set the wool alight. Evans suffered serious burns, and died from shock in 1901. Curiously, he left a relatively modest net personalty of £10,876. The only son of Edward Wallace Evans appears to have played no active part in the business.
The works covered around seven acres by 1907. Exclusively English grain was used for brewing. The company probably still had the largest vinegar brewing capacity in the world.
Edward Henry Hill died in 1911 and left a net personalty of £147,081. A generous benefactor, he died unmarried.
Increased competition saw the company suffer from reduced profitability in the early 1960s. Hill Evans lacked the scale of its larger rival British Vinegar. The railway line was closed in 1964.
Hill Evans entered into voluntary liquidation in 1967, and the vinegar works were closed. The Grade II listed vinegar works building are used by the Territorial Army as of 2019.
How did Douglas Clague transform John D Hutchison into one of the largest trading houses in Hong Kong?
Establishment of John D Hutchison
John Duflon Hutchison (1855 – 1920) was born in Bromley, London, the son of an English father and a Swiss mother.
Hutchison relocated to Hong Kong in 1877. He joined Robert Walker & Co, a trading house engaged in selling consumer goods to China. He acquired Robert Walker & Co in the 1880s, and renamed it John D Hutchison & Co.
Hutchison established an office in Shanghai, China from 1900.
Thomas Ernest Pearce (1883 – 1941) joined the firm from 1903.
John Colville Hutchison (1890 – 1965) declined to enter his father’s business, and instead joined the Foreign Office from 1915. He went on to become the first British ambassador to Communist China, and was later knighted.
T E Pearce acquired a controlling stake in John D Hutchison & Co from John Duflon Hutchison in 1917. Hutchison died in Shanghai in 1920.
Pearce was joined in partnership by his brother-in-law, Philip Stanley Cassidy (1889 – 1971), from 1922. After Pearce was killed in action during the Battle of Hong Kong in 1941, Cassidy became the chairman of the firm.
Douglas Clague
John Douglas “Duggie” Clague (1917 – 1981) was born in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and raised on the Isle of Man. He originally worked as a bank clerk. He was a convivial man, with a passion for horse racing.
Clague joined the British Army and was stationed in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Following the Japanese invasion he was captured and held in the Sham Shui Po prisoner of war camp. With three others, including John Pearce (1918 – 2017), the son of T E Pearce, he made a daring escape into China in 1942. In recognition of his bravery he was awarded the Military Cross and a CBE.
From Huizhou, Clague commanded the British Army Aid Group, a MI9 unit engaged in assisting POWs to flee Japanese internment camps. In 1945 he joined the Thailand underground movement, and when the war ended he took command of 30,000 Allied POWs in Thailand.
Clague was promoted to Colonel in 1945, and appointed War Crimes Liaison Officer for Burma and Thailand. Clague returned to Hong Kong in 1947 with a sterling reputation and an excellent network of acquaintances.
Presumably aided by an introduction from John Pearce, Clague was appointed deputy to Philip Cassidy. John D Hutchison & Co had suffered during the Second World War, and was dwarfed by the larger Hong Kong trading houses of Jardine Matheson and Wheelock Marden.
Wheelock Marden acquired a half share in John D Hutchison & Co in 1948.
Clague develops John D Hutchison
Douglas Clague was appointed chairman of John D Hutchison following the retirement of Philip Cassidy in 1952.
Clague bought out the Wheelock Marden stake for £1.5 million in 1963. He renamed the company Hutchison International, and embarked upon the acquisition trail.
Control of A S Watson, a pharmacy chain and one of the largest soft drinks manufacturers in Hong Kong, was acquired in 1963.
Other acquisitions included Davie Boag, a trading company, and Oriental Pacific Mills, a textiles business, in 1967.
Amidst the cultural revolution in China, and riots in Hong Kong, Clague found that assets could be acquired at a relative discount. A colleague, John Richardson, later recalled, “[Clague] was an extraordinary man. He would buy a business over the fourth race at the Hong Kong races and someone would have to make sure the deal worked.”
Hutchison International gained majority control of Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock Company, one of the largest companies in Hong Kong, in 1969. Clague claimed that Hutchison International was now the largest trading house in Hong Kong.
China Provident, a warehousing business with valuable property assets, was acquired in 1970.
Clague became firmly embedded in the Hong Kong establishment. He received a knighthood in 1971. He held the prestigious role of chairman of the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club from 1972 to 1974. The Financial Times described Clague as “one of Hong Kong’s most remarkable entrepreneurs” in 1974. He boasted, “I am Hong Kong’s Rock of Gibraltar”.
HSBC rescues the business
A global recession in the mid-1970s was to have a severe impact on Hong Kong’s export-driven economy. This, combined with heavy losses at an Indonesian subsidiary, high-risk financial speculations and overpayment of directors, led Hutchison to enter into cash-flow difficulties. Clague sold a 22 percent stake in Hutchison International to the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC) for £15 million in 1975.
With effective control of Hutchison, HSBC forced Clague to step down from executive responsibilities. He was replaced by William Wyllie (1932 – 2006), an Australian with a reputation as a turnaround specialist for Asian businesses. Wyllie regarded Hutchison as “a cowboy outfit”, and his initial reaction was that “there probably aren’t 50 subsidiaries that are worth a damn”. Wyllie reduced expenditure, and divested 103 loss-making subsidiaries in 1976.
Clague argued, “that Hutchison had liquidity problems is without doubt. But the seriousness of them was grossly exaggerated, and talk of possible insolvency can only be regarded as irresponsible, if not mischievous”.
Hutchison International underwent a full merger with Hong Kong & Whampoa Dock to form Hutchison Whampoa in 1977.
HSBC sold its stake in Hutchison Whampoa to Li Ka-shing (born 1928), a property developer, for £52 million in 1979. Wyllie complained that the stake was sold for less than half of its book value, commenting, “Hutchison was sold far too cheaply. It was a steal.” Wyllie left Hutchison Whampoa in 1981.
Li Ka-shing (born 1928) in 2010
Clague died following a battle with cancer in 1981.
Hutchison grows under Li Ka-shing
Ka-shing had extended his stake in Hutchison to 40 percent by 1981.
Ka-shing appointed Simon Murray (born 1940), an affable Englishman, as managing director. Murray admitted, “I’m just the guy driving the truck. Li’s in the back, telling me which way to go”.
Ka-shing brought professional management principles to Hutchison, and expanded its operations into overseas markets. He developed a management structure that he explained combined “the fluidity of Chinese philosophical thinking with the science of Western management”.
Ka-shing sold John D Hutchison Group, the trading arm, and Hutchison Boag Engineering, a building materials company, to Inchcape Pacific for US$111 million in 1990.
By the early 1990s the diverse conglomerate had been streamlined into five industries: telecommunications, ports, consumer retail and manufacturing, utilities and property development and management.
Murray and Ka-shing eventually clashed over company strategy: Murray wanted to invest in Britain and Canada, whilst Ka-shing wanted to concentrate on trade with mainland China. Murray was replaced as managing director by Canning Fok (born 1951) in 1993.
A stake in Orange, the telecommunications business, was sold for $15 billion in 1999.
Kruidvat, a health and beauty retailer with 1,800 stores, including 700 Superdrug outlets across Britain, was acquired for £829 million in 2002.
Cheung Kong Holdings, controlled by Ka-shing, acquired full control of Hutchison Whampoa for US$24 billion in 2015, to form CK Hutchison Holdings. CK Hutchison had a market capitalization of £19.8 billion in 2023.
Dr Tibbles’ Vi-Cocoa was a popular energy restorative in the Victorian era. At its height it was one of the highest-selling cocoa-based drinks in Britain.
William Tibbles introduces Vi-Cocoa
William Tibbles (1834 – 1912) was born into impoverished circumstances in Leicester, in the English Midlands. The family resided in the workhouse at the time of the 1851 Census.
Tibbles described his occupation as a framework knitter and medical practitioner in the 1861 census. No evidence has been uncovered that suggests that Tibbles ever underwent any formal medical training.
Tibbles claimed that botanicals had cured him of tuberculosis in 1867. He began to sell coca and its concentrated extract, cocaine, as a general cure for physical weakness and tuberculosis, from 1871. He was advertising Tibbles Concentrated Essence of Composition and Cocaine by 1876.
Tibbles later invented Vi-Cocoa, a mixture of malt, hops, kola and cocoa. He licensed the recipe and brand rights to Dr Tibbles’ Vi-Cocoa Ltd, a company formed to exploit his product. Advertisements for Vi-Cocoa first appeared from 1893.
William Tibbles retires and Lord Leverhulme takes control of the business
The business was registered as Dr Tibbles’ Vi-Cocoa (1898) Ltd with a capital of £400,000 in 1898. Tibbles retired soon afterwards. The company was probably overvalued, with high sales heavily dependent on unsustainable levels of advertising.
The business was renamed the Watford Manufacturing Company in 1907. Over 1,000 people were employed by 1914. Vi-Cocoa and Delecta chocolate were the principal products.
The company did not pay a dividend between 1908 and 1918. Nominal capital was increased from £250,000 to £1 million in 1918, with Lord Leverhulme (1851 – 1925) becoming the largest single shareholder. Originally a soap manufacturer, Leverhulme was increasingly concerned with food manufacturing by this time, and the paternalistic reputation of the Watford Manufacturing Company was in harmony with his own views.
Lord Leverhulme (1851 – 1925) in 1917
Construction of a large new factory begun in 1918-19, but was never completed due to liquidity issues. The company had benefited from healthy sales during the First World War, aided by military contracts. However the wartime boom was followed by a post-war economic slump.
Company capital was increased to £3 million in 1919-20.
The Watford Manufacturing Company entered into liquidation in 1922. Lord Leverhulme purchased the company assets for £543,000 in cash to ensure that all creditors were paid, as well as in all likelihood, to protect his own reputation.
The Financial Times commented after the liquidation that the downfall of the company was as a result of its excessive valuation.
Leverhulme almost immediately sold the site and brands to Planters Products Ltd, a Lever Brothers subsidiary. Vi-Cocoa production continued.
The Watford factory employed 400 people by 1929, and was one of the largest employers in the area.
The Watford factory was sold off in 1930, and production was absorbed into Unilever, the successor to Lever Brothers.
Vi-Cocoa continued to be advertised as late as 1945.
Henry Denny & Sons was the largest bacon producer in Europe.
Henry Denny
Henry Denny (1790 – 1870) was born in Waterford, Ireland, to a Protestant shoemaker. He established himself as a provisions merchant in Waterford. Denny was initially in partnership with a Simon Max, but began trading independently from 1820.
Waterford was the centre for pig production in Ireland, with 3,000 hogs killed weekly. However pigs were generally exported alive in order to ensure freshness. Curing techniques in an era before artificial refrigeration were crude, and relied on an excessive amount of salt.
Denny’s principal trade was in butter as late as 1839. It is not until 1846 that we see him described as a bacon merchant.
Henry Denny was elected as Mayor of Waterford in 1854.
Denny introduced improvements to existing curing techniques. He began to cure bacon using ice from 1854. Known as “mild curing”, it made the bacon more palatable by using much less salt for preservation. Denny was granted a patent for this process from 1857.
By importing large shipments of block ice from Norway, bacon could be produced during the summer months for the first time. Irish meat could now be exported year round.
Abraham Denny enters the business
Abraham Denny (1820 – 1892), a trained architect, joined his father in the business from 1855. Abraham Denny is said to have been instrumental in expanding the business.
Denny & Co used over 1,000 pigs every week by 1866. Denny was challenged only by its Waterford rival Richardson & Co for the position of the largest bacon curer in Ireland.
London was the principal market for Waterford bacon, and Edward Maynard Denny (1832 – 1905), son of Henry Denny, was sent to the capital to act as a sales agent for the business from 1866. He was joined by his brother Thomas Anthony Denny (1819 – 1910).
An average of about 2,000 pigs a week were used by 1868.
Henry Denny died of bronchitis in 1870 and the business was continued by Abraham Denny.
Henry Denny & Sons opened a factory in Limerick from 1872.
62,886 pigs were killed in 1876.
150 people were employed by 1877, shared equally between the Waterford and Limerick plants.
The works at Waterford probably represented the largest bacon curing plant in Europe by 1882.
A factory was established in Cork from 1889.
Henry Denny & Sons was the largest bacon curer in Ireland by 1890, and one of the largest employers in Waterford. An extensive export trade to Europe had been developed by this time.
Public listing of Henry Denny & Sons
Henry Denny & Sons went public with a capital of £400,000 in 1891.
Operations had been established in Hamburg, Germany by 1892.
Abraham Denny died with a personalty valued at £174,967 in 1892. He was succeeded by his son, Charles Edward Denny (1849 – 1927) .
Due to an insufficient supply of pigs in Ireland, Henry Denny & Sons acquired a Danish meat company in 1894. The company introduced Irish meat curing techniques to Denmark.
Waterford operations outgrew the original site on Queen Street, and the plant was relocated to the former Richardson & Co factory on Morgan Street.
Edward Maynard Denny left a gross estate valued at £584,789 when he died in 1905.
Thomas Anthony Denny died with a gross estate valued at £226,150 in 1910. He had been a prominent supporter of the Salvation Army.
Over 3,000 pigs were used every week by June 1914. The company was a substantial supplier of Irish bacon to the British armed forces during the First World War.
Henry Denny & Sons was advertising itself as the largest bacon producer in Europe by 1919.
Charles Edward Denny died in 1927, with an English estate valued at £475,248 and an Irish estate valued at £66,277.
The factory on Morgan Street, Waterford, was the largest of its kind in the British Isles by 1933. 400 workers were employed during peak periods. The site could handle up to 4,000 pigs every week.
Inside the sausage room at Denny’s Waterford factory, 1937
A Wiltshire cure bacon factory was opened in Portadown, Northern Ireland in 1935. It initially had a capacity to process 2,000 pigs a week, and employed a workforce of 200.
Cook & McNeily, bacon curers of Sligo, was acquired in 1936.
J & T Sinclair, bacon curers of Belfast, was acquired in 1960.
Overcapacity and sale of the company
The Cork factory was closed due to overcapacity in the industry in 1968. 160 jobs out of a total of 180 were lost.
The Waterford site was closed in 1972 due to continued overcapacity in the industry, and the outdated nature of the site.
The company began to seriously struggle as the bacon market became oversaturated. The Irish operations were acquired by Kerry Foods for around £1.5 million in 1982. The company employed 300 people. Kerry already supplied much of the pigs for Denny products.
N Corah operated the largest hosiery factory in Britain and employed 6,500 people.
Origins and early success
Nathaniel Corah (1776 – 1832) was a Baptist from Bagworth, a Leicestershire village. He entered into the local knitting industry, and trained as a framesmith.
Corah established himself as a hosiery trader in Leicester from 1815. He would purchase hosiery at the Globe public house on Silver Street in Leicester and sell it in Birmingham. He was initially assisted in business by his wife Sarah (1784 – 1856).
The Globe on Silver Street, Leicester, is still trading
Corah became a successful trader, and was able to purchase the freehold of a block of buildings on Union Street, Leicester, to house his increasing stocks, in 1824.
N Corah & Sons
Corah’s sons, John, William and Thomas, entered into the business as partners from 1830, and the firm began to trade as N Corah & Sons.
N Corah & Sons relocated to a purpose-built factory on Granby Street from 1845. Steam-powered manufacturing was introduced at the new premises. The business employed around 1,000 old hand frames for stocking manufacturing by 1846.
John Harris Cooper (1832 – 1906) joined N Corah & Sons in 1846. He became involved in management at the firm following the completion of his seven year apprenticeship.
John Harris Cooper and Edwin Corah (1832 – 1880) acquired the business in 1857.
Relocation to the St Margaret’s Works
N Corah & Sons relocated to the St Margaret’s Works in Leicester from 1865. Named after the parish in which it was located, the site originally had a floor space of two acres. The firm introduced the St Margaret’s trademark for clothing at this time. A large beam engine was operated from 1866.
N Corah & Sons employed a workforce of 1,500 and produced about 2,000 tons of product annually by 1872.
Upon the death of Edwin Corah in 1880, John Arthur Corah (1846 – 1917) and Alfred Corah joined Cooper in partnership, and the firm began to trade as N Corah, Sons & Cooper. J A Corah had previously managed the Liverpool branch of the business, and Alfred Corah had managed the Birmingham branch.
Electric lighting was installed at the St Margaret’s Works from 1883. The firm paid wages substantially above average, and thus avoided strike action by its workers. The firm was a substantial benefactor to various charitable causes, especially the elderly poor of Leicester.
50 percent of the male staff at Corah joined the armed forces during the First World War. The firm produced ten million articles of knitwear during the war, with over 70 percent destined for government contracts.
John Arthur Corah died in 1917 with a gross estate valued at £143,208.
Incorporation as a private company
N Corah & Sons was incorporated as a private company in 1919. The St Margaret’s Works was the largest factory of its kind in Britain and probably the largest single-site hosiery works in the world. 2,500 people were employed on a five acre site. Production largely consisted of hosiery and other woollen goods.
King George V visited the factory in 1919, partly in recognition of its contribution to the war effort.
King George V and Queen Mary visit St Margaret’s Works in 1919
N Corah & Sons became a supplier to Marks & Spencer from 1926. The two companies would develop a strong relationship.
Authorised capital was increased to £750,000 in 1939. The company employed 4,500 people.
During the Second World War, half the company’s staff either went into the armed services or were transferred to munitions production. Some 26 million articles were produced during the war. The engineering department was largely given over to producing gun components and parts for tank landing craft.
Conversion into a public company
N Corah & Sons was converted into a public company in 1946. Marks & Spencer was the principal customer. The St Margaret’s Works in Leicester covered six acres and was the largest hosiery factory in Britain. Around 2,500 people were employed.
Marks & Spencer was a dynamic retailer, and Lord Marks encouraged Corah to become more ambitious. Marks & Spencer made the transition from a low-cost retailer to a quality purveyor from 1951. As a major supplier, Corah too entered this transition. Encouraged by Marks & Spencer, Corah entered into a policy of long-term planning and development.
Image of the Corah building in Leicester in 1990. Image used with permission from the Leicester Mercury archive.
To reflect the success of its trademark, the company name was changed to N Corah (St Margaret) Ltd in 1954.
The St Margaret’s Works covered a floor space of twelve acres by 1965. Corah employed 6,500 people across the company.
Corah was the second largest supplier of hosiery and knitwear to chain stores and supermarkets by 1968. Marks & Spencer accounted for 75 percent of sales.
Nicholas Corah (1932 – 2010) became company chairman from the late 1960s.
Financial difficulties and demise
Corah entered into difficulty in the 1980s. It was squeezed by its larger rivals Coats Viyella and Courtaulds and by low overhead Asian operators in the English Midlands. It acquired Reliance, a fellow Marks & Spencer supplier, but struggled to integrate the business. This was followed by a strike at one of its factories. Meanwhile, tastes in fashion began to change.
The struggling knitwear division was closed with the loss of nearly 800 jobs in 1988. Corah sold its sock division to Courtaulds for £7.5 million in cash in 1988. Corah concentrated on its three remaining businesses: knitted fabric, underwear and outerwear.
The loss-making Corah was acquired by Charterhall, an Australian investment group, for £27.2 million in 1988. Charterhall entered into administration in 1990.
Coats Viyella, the largest textiles company in Britain, acquired Corah for around £25 million in cash in 1994.
Coats Viyella closed the Leicester factory in 2000.
How did Henri Wintermans become the highest-selling cigar brand in the world?
A Wintermans & Sons is established
Two brothers, Sjaak Wintermans and Henri Wintermans (1886 – 1975), established a cigar manufacturing business at Duizel, in the Netherlands, from 1904. They traded as A Wintermans & Sons, in honour of their father. Sjaak focused on sales and Henri concentrated on the buying and blending of tobacco.
A Wintermans & Sons captured a substantial proportion of the Dutch market but Henri amicably left the partnership to establish his own cigar manufacturing business from 1934.
Henri Wintermans relocated to the neighbouring town of Eersel, and his son Adriaan Wintermans entered into the business.
Adriaan Wintermans takes over the business, and grows sales in Britain and France
Adriaan Wintermans took over management of his father’s business from 1945.
Wintermans identified the post-war Dutch cigar market as oversaturated, and decided to concentrate on export sales in order to drive his business forward. Britain quickly became the largest market.
The Cafe Creme cigarillo was introduced into France from the early 1960s.
Henri Wintermans was by far the highest-selling Dutch cigar brand in Britain by 1965.
Wintermans is sold to British American Tobacco
Adriaan Wintermans had a clear vision for the European cigar market, but he lacked the financial capital to realise his ambition. He felt that the company could best realise its potential as a part of a larger concern, and sold Henri Wintermans to British American Tobacco (BAT) for just under £2 million in 1966.
BAT was the largest manufacturer of tobacco products in the world, and Adriaan Wintermans was appointed head of their European cigar business.
Over 500 million Henri Wintermans cigars were produced in 1971.
Henri Wintermans made just two percent of its sales in the Netherlands in 1972. Britain accounted for over 62 percent of sales, and Henri Wintermans held around 15 percent of the British cigar market.
Henri Wintermans increased sales by over 500 percent between 1966 and 1972. Production capacity was increased by 75 percent to cope with rising demand in 1972.
A Henri Wintermans advertisement from the Daily Telegraph in 1986
Henri Wintermans was the leading cigar exporter in the world by 1977. It was the highest-selling imported cigar brand in Britain by 1978.
Wintermans Cafe Creme ranked second in the British miniature cigar market by 1983.
Over 600 million Henri Winterman cigars were sold in 1990.
BAT sells Wintermans to the Scandinavian Tobacco Group
Henri Wintermans was sold to the Scandinavian Tobacco Group for £55 million in 1996. The merged business was the largest cigar manufacturer in Europe.
Henri Wintermans employed around 2,000 people in 1999.
Henri Wintermans dominates the British market for medium and large cigars, with a 76 percent volume share in 2020.
Henri Wintermans products continue to be manufactured in Eersel. The vast majority of sales are in Europe. Henri Wintermans is the leading cigar brand in Australia.
Fox’s is best known for the Rocky and Party Rings biscuits. Brandy snaps, its original product, are still sold.
Michael Spedding establishes the business
Michael Spedding (1834 – 1927) was born to poor circumstances at Marsh, near Huddersfield in Yorkshire. He received just three months of formal education.
Spedding found work at a cotton mill in nearby Meltham. His grandfather encouraged him to relocate to Batley, where prospects were better. Spedding was poor, and made the 15-mile journey on foot. His economic position was such that on some nights he would sleep in barns.
Spedding married Susan Fox (1834 – 1895), the daughter of a bone-setter, in 1854.
Party Rings, a leading Fox’s product
Spedding had established himself as a food seller by 1863. He began to concentrate on the confectionery trade, with an initial focus on brandy snap biscuits.
Spedding had been joined in business by his daughter Hannah and his son-in-law Fred Ellis Fox (1871 – 1938) by 1891. The business began to trade as F E Fox & Co from 1897. Spedding retired in 1900.
F E Fox & Son
Fred Fox was joined by his son, Michael Spedding Fox (1896 – 1963), and the business began to trade as F E Fox & Son.
F E Fox & Son relocated to a new site at Batley from 1927. Ginger biscuits began to be produced alongside brandy snaps.
Michael Spedding died as one of the oldest men in his district in 1927.
F E Fox & Son was incorporated as a private company in 1938. The business was still a regional concern at this time.
Fred Fox died in 1938 and left an estate valued at £19,243. Michael Spedding Fox became managing director of the company.
Fox’s Biscuits becomes a national business
The Batley factory was expanded and modernised in the post-war period. F E Fox & Son had around 500 employees by 1955.
F E Fox & Son won a valuable contract to produce biscuits for Marks & Spencer in 1958. The contract accounted for half of all production.
F E Fox & Son required capital to fulfil its ambitions of becoming a nationally recognised company. The business went public in 1960 as Fox’s Biscuits with an authorised share capital of £400,000. There were around 950 employees.
The offices at Batley in 2007
Parkinson’s Biscuits of Kirkham, Preston was acquired in 1966.
J Lyons & Co acquired a 25 percent stake in Fox’s Biscuits in 1972.
Acquisition by Northern Foods
Fox’s Biscuits was acquired by Northern Foods in 1977. Following the merger of their interests, Northern Foods supplied Marks & Spencer with around 40 percent of its cake and biscuits.
Alfred Henry Fox died with an estate valued at £124,375 in 1977.
Fox’s Biscuits was one of the largest biscuit manufacturers in Britain by 1986. Around 2,500 people were employed.
Elkes Biscuits of Uttoxeter was acquired in 1986.
Northern Foods invested £20 million to increase production at Fox’s Biscuits in 1987.
Fox’s Biscuits was best known for its Rocky and Party Rings biscuits by the 1990s.
The Elkes brand was repositioned as a budget product.
2 Sisters Food Group and Ferrero
Northern Foods was acquired by 2 Sisters Food Group in 2011.
Fox’s ranked fourth in the British biscuit market, with a four percent share in 2019. The business employed 2,000 people. Own-label and contact work accounted for around 25 percent of production.
Ferrero, an Italian confectionery manufacturer, acquired Fox’s Biscuits, including the Batley and Kirkham sites, for £246 million in 2020. The own-label biscuit business, with a factory at Uttoxeter, was retained by 2 Sisters.
