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Biscuits & cakes

Baking history: William Crawford & Sons

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Crawford’s was the fourth largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain, and the longest-established. The brand continues today as the economy sister brand to McVitie’s.

Origins and early growth
Ship biscuits were first produced at 31 Shore, a public house in Leith, Edinburgh, from 1813. Robert Mathie (1789 – 1863) took over the business from 1817. The bakery business was to prosper under Mathie, and he employed five men by 1851.

Mathie retired in 1856 and sold the business to William Crawford (1818 – 1889). Crawford immediately opened an outlet on 14 Leith Street, Edinburgh, in order to extend his customer base.

Crawford was a master baker employing six men and one boy by 1861. He relocated his Edinburgh outlet to 2 Princes Street from 1866.

Crawford employed five men and one boy in 1871.

Crawford established a custom-built factory at Elbe Street, Leith in 1879. The business traded as William Crawford & Sons from 1880. The wheatmeal biscuit, similar to a digestive, had replaced the ship biscuit as the leading product by this time.

William Crawford died in 1889 as a well-respected figure in Leith and Edinburgh. He was succeeded as principal of the firm by his son, William Crawford (1858 – 1926), a man of a retiring disposition. It would be due to the efforts of the son that the family firm would grow to national scale.

Establishment of a Liverpool factory
William Crawford sent two of his brothers, Archibald Inglis Crawford (1869 – 1940) and James Shields Russell Crawford (1863 – 1927), to establish a subsidiary in Australia in 1897. The brothers were due to set sail from Liverpool, but instead decided to stay put, and established the Fairfield Works on Binns Road in the city.

The Fairfield Works, Binns Road, Liverpool (2013)

Crawford products around this time included wheatmeal, shortbread, currant and rich tea biscuits, as well as cream crackers.

William Crawford & Sons had established national distribution by 1900.

William Crawford & Sons of Leith was registered as a limited liability company with a capital of £251,000 in 1906. The Crawford family continued to control the business.

The Leith factory was largely rebuilt in 1906, and covered a quarter of an acre. The factory employed 150 men and boys by 1911.

Alexander Hunter Crawford (1865 – 1945), a leading Edinburgh architect, joined the company from around 1920.

William Crawford & Sons employed hundreds of people at its factories at Leith and Liverpool by 1923. By this time the company claimed to be “the oldest of the biscuit manufacturers”.

Company capital was increased to £700,000 in 1924.

William Crawford died with an estate valued at £876,211 in 1926.

William Crawford & Sons ranked among the largest British biscuit manufacturers by 1929. It was the fourth largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain in 1939, with a market share by volume of 14 percent.

Archibald Inglis Crawford died in 1940 with an estate valued at £1,015,886.

Douglas Inglis Crawford (1904 – 1981), son of Archibald, became company chairman from 1946. His father had instilled in him the values of honesty and integrity.

Douglas Inglis Crawford (1904 – 1981)

Sale to United Biscuits
William Crawford & Sons was the largest privately-owned biscuit manufacturer in Britain by 1962. Its best known product was shortbread. The business employed 3,000 people in Liverpool, and 1,000 in Leith.

The company was still largely in Crawford family hands when it was acquired in a friendly takeover by United Biscuits for £6.25 million in 1962. Douglas Crawford was appointed vice chairman of United Biscuits.

United Biscuits closed the Leith factory in 1970, with the loss of 703 jobs. Meanwhile an investment of £2 million saw production increased by 50 percent at the Liverpool plant.

The McVitie’s, Crawford and Macfarlane sales teams were merged in the 1970s.

Douglas Crawford retired in 1974.

The Crawford factory in Liverpool was the longest-established and largest of all United Biscuits factories. It was also the most progressive in terms of employee relations. The site covered seventeen acres and employed 4,000 people by 1977. The Tuc biscuit and Tartan shortbread were its leading products.

Douglas Crawford died with a net estate valued at £252,431 in 1981.

United Biscuits wound-down manufacturing operations at Liverpool between 1984 and 1987. 934 full time and over 1,000 part time jobs were lost. Some administrative functions are maintained at the site.

The Crawford name was repositioned as an economy brand from 2014. The Crawford’s (formerly Peek Frean) Family Circle was rebranded under the McVitie’s name.

Spreads & sauces

The Salt King: John Corbett

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John Corbett was by far the largest producer of salt in Britain.

The early life of John Corbett
John Corbett (1817 – 1901) was the son of Joseph Corbett, a Shropshire farmer. Joseph Corbett relocated to Birmingham, where he established a successful canal freight business.

John Corbett (1817-1901) by Henry Tanworth Wells. Image used with the kind permission of The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust

John Corbett left school at the age of ten, and assisted in driving one of his father’s canal boats. He was eventually promoted to canal boat captain. Corbett observed that salt was one of the major freight goods.

In his spare time, as well as on canal boats, Corbett would read mechanical books, with the aim of becoming an engineer. He served a five year apprenticeship at the Leys Ironworks in Stourbridge from 1840. This practical experience would later prove useful in his later career.

John Corbett was taken into partnership by his father in 1846. However the business was suffering with increased competition from the railways, and was sold to the Grand Junction Canal Company in 1849.

Corbett acquires the Stoke Prior Salt Works
John Corbett found employment at the Stoke Prior Salt Works near Droitwich. He began as an engine driver, before working as an outrider, and finally as a cashier. Corbett was learning the salt business at all levels.

The company that operated the Stoke Prior Salt Works failed, and Corbett acquired the lease to the site from the bank in 1852. The works were relatively small at this time, with an annual production of 26,000 tons of salt. Two successive companies had failed to make a success of the business. Corbett studied the previous failures and endeavoured to make a success of it.

The Stoke Prior Salt Works produced salt from springwater. Underground springs passed through a salt bed, which gave the water a salt content of 38.4 percent, a higher level than even the Dead Sea.

Corbett used his engineering ability to introduce improved salt refining techniques. Identifying distribution as the most profitable area of the salt industry, he acquired his own canal boats, and later trains, to transport his product. To increase export sales he established agents overseas.

Corbett employed at least 500 people at his salt works by 1871. He was probably the largest salt manufacturer in Britain by 1876, with an annual output of 200,000 tons of salt from a 30 acre site.

Corbett hired the best people he could afford, and was a paternalistic employer. He built a village for his workers including a school, church and social clubs. Corbett was also a dedicated philanthropist, establishing a 40 bed hospital in Stourbridge, as well as gifting Salters Hall to Droitwich.

Throughout his career, Corbett remained a hands-on proprietor, deeply engaged in the management of his business. He was an incredibly keen businessman, and a hard worker, beginning his working day at 6am, and often sleeping above his work offices.

By character Corbett was a quiet, likeable man. He was thoughtful, intelligent and interested in the arts and travel. Despite his immense wealth he lived a plain life, and drank in moderation.

Salt was the largest manufacture by tonnage in Britain after coal and iron in 1879. Between one and two million tons were produced each year, and thousands of people were employed in the industry.

Corbett produced up to 300,000 tons of salt per annum, by 1886. High quality table salt was the main product, sold under the “Black Horse” brand.

Men were limited to an eight hour day, and women to seven. Corbett paid his workers a premium of around 15 percent against the industry average. In his entire career, Corbett never suffered a strike that lasted 48 hours or more.

According to an industry estimate, John Corbett held nearly 50 percent of the British salt producing industry by 1888 and the Stoke Prior Salt Works was the most valuable enterprise of its kind in Britain.

The Salt Union
The Salt Union Ltd was formed in 1888 as a merger of various salt interests across the country, including the Stoke Prior Salt Works, which were acquired at the cost of £660,000. Salt Union had a capital of £3 million and produced two million tons of salt every year.

Corbett became deputy chairman, a managing director, and by far the largest shareholder in the concern.

The Salt Union was immediately accused of attempting to rig the market and raise prices. It was alleged in The Standard that salt prices to the strategically important alkali industry had increased by 80 percent.

As a consequence of the price increase, exports slumped by 20 percent, and many people were placed out of work. Corbett initially defended the company, arguing that producers had been operating at an unsustainable loss for a considerable period of time, and that the price adjustment merely reflected a correction of the market.

Corbett was to regret joining the Salt Union. The company had a lack of focus and direction, and his recommendations for the business were ignored. As a result, Corbett resigned his post as deputy chairman and managing director in 1890.

The Salt Union rapidly lost market share. Its attempt to exploit its monopoly position simply allowed its competitors to undercut it. Furthermore, an improved table salt was introduced by rival Cerebos in 1894.

Corbett died due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease in 1901. His net estate was valued at £412,972. An obituary in the Daily Telegraph heralded him as the “Salt King”. The bulk of his estate went to his only surviving brother, Dr Thomas Corbett (1836 – 1906). When Thomas Corbett died he left the bulk of his brother’s estate to various charitable institutions.

The Droitwich works had been practically shut down by 1912.

The Salt Union was acquired by ICI in 1937. The Droitwich works were closed due to the impact of lower-cost foreign imports in 1972.

Iron & steel

Ring their praises: Bell Brothers

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Bell Brothers was the second largest producer of pig iron in the North of England.

Bell Brothers
Thomas Bell (1774 – 1845) was born at Lowhurst, Cumberland. He entered the business of Losh & Co of Newcastle upon Tyne, a firm of merchants which was branching out into the manufacture of alkali and iron, in 1808. He became a partner in the firm, which became known as Losh, Wilson & Bell.

Thomas Bell’s sons, Isaac Lowthian Bell (1816 – 1904) and John Bell (1818 – 1888), established Bell Brothers in 1844. They leased an iron smelting works at Wylam on Tyne.

Isaac Lowthian Bell (1816 – 1904) by Henry Tanworth Wells. Image used with permission from Middlesbrough Town Hall

Lowthian Bell was the senior partner. Educated in the sciences at the Sorbonne in France, he spoke fluent German, Danish and French. Bell would later be heralded as the first scientifically trained ironmaster.

John Vaughan discovered sizeable deposits of ironstone (from which iron ore could be extracted) at Eston in the Cleveland hills near Middlesbrough.

John Bell made his own ironstone discovery at Normanby, and leased the land from the Ward Jackson family. Two blast furnaces were erected at Port Clarence, Cleveland in 1853. Three more were built the following year.

Bell Brothers was registered as a limited liability company in 1873. The company remained entirely family controlled.

Two new blast furnaces were opened in 1874, and the company announced plans to increase capacity to 750 tons of iron per day.

Bell Brothers pioneered the Teesside salt industry. The company began to bore salt from 1882, and by the end of the year had a productive capacity of up to 400 tons of salt a week. The salt was sold to Tyneside chemical manufacturers, who used it to produce alkali. By April 1883 the company produced 860 tons of salt a week.

By this time, Teesside was the largest producer of iron in the world.

Bell Brothers operated twelve blast furnaces at Port Clarence by 1877. The company also operated ironstone mines, limestone quarries and collieries. Around £1 million in capital was invested in the business. The company was second only to Bolckow Vaughan in pig iron production in the North of England.

Thomas Hugh Bell (1844 – 1931), the son of Lowthian Bell, was responsible for managing the business by this time.

Thomas Hugh Bell (1844 – 1931) in the 1910s. Image used with permission from the National Portrait Gallery

Bell Brothers announced plans to develop a steel works at Port Clarence in 1887. The works would use the Siemens-Martin process, instead of the established Bessemer process, to manufacture steel from Cleveland pig iron. The strategy allowed the company to exit the increasingly competitive iron market.

Bell Brothers employed 4,500 men in 1898. The company had an authorised capital of £825,000.

Bell Brothers divested its salt interests to Salt Union and Brunner Mond in 1899.

Merger with Dorman Long
Dorman Long acquired half of Bell Brothers from Thomas Hugh Bell in 1899. The remaining half was acquired from Lowthian Bell in 1902.

Lowthian Bell became chairman of Dorman Long. With a capital of £1 million, the merged company was the largest iron and steel manufacturer in the North of England.

Bell Brothers produced 360,000 tons of pig iron in 1903. The number of blast furnaces had been reduced to eight by 1905.

Bell Brothers blast furnaces at Port Clarence in 1917

Lowthian Bell died with an estate valued at £768,676 in 1904.

The Bell Brothers subsidiary was formally liquidated in 1923.

Consumer healthcare

A digested history of Eno’s Fruit Salts

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How did Eno’s Fruit Salts became one of the best known branded medicines in the world?

J C Eno introduces Fruit Salts
James Crossley Eno (1827 – 1915) was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He was appointed as dispensing chemist at the Newcastle Infirmary in 1846. He acquired the lease of a small chemist’s shop at 57 Groat Market in 1851.

Eno introduced Fruit Salts, an indigestion remedy, in 1868. The salts consisted of sodium bicarbonate, tartaric acid and citric acid. The Fruit Salts name represented the sources of the two acids, tartaric from grapes and citric from citrus fruit.

Seamen using the East Coast ports became heavy users of Eno’s Fruit Salts, and helped to establish the reputation of the brand across the country and overseas.

A 1924 advertisement

Eno soon found himself unable to meet increasing demand for his product, and he relocated his business to a factory on New Cross Road, London, in 1876. The business employed 50 people by 1884.

J C Eno was established as a limited company with a capital of £100,000 in 1891.

Eno entered into retirement from around 1904. He was succeeded as company chairman by his son-in-law, Commander Harold William Swithinbank (1858 – 1928).

Harold F Ritchie (1881 – 1933) of Toronto became the Canadian sales agent in 1907. Ritchie believed the J C Eno business was tradition-bound and staid. He promised to double Canadian sales within one year or else forfeit his commission; instead he quadrupled volumes. TIME magazine characterised Ritchie as the “world’s greatest salesman”.

Harold F Ritchie (1881 – 1933)

James Eno died in 1915. He left a gross estate valued at £1.6 million.

J C Eno company capital had been increased to £650,000 by 1920.

The Eno business is sold to Harold F Ritchie
Following the death of Commander Swithinbank the business was sold to Harold F Ritchie for over £1.5 million in 1928. Ritchie received the first option to acquire the business in recognition of his service to the company.

Ritchie maintained existing management. Between 1928 and 1932 he established factories in Canada, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Australia, South Africa and Germany.

Ritchie died in 1933. His widow sold control of the company to the London & Yorkshire Trust for over £1 million in 1934.

Shares in Eno Proprietaries Limited were offered to the public. The business had a capitalisation of £3.25 million.

Eno’s Fruit Salts had become one of the best known proprietary medicines in the world. The product was sold in 83 countries. It was advertised in 73 countries with 26 different languages. The principal factory was in London, but there were two large factories in North America, and nine smaller factories across the rest of the world.

Beecham acquires the business
Eno Proprietaries was acquired by Beecham for just over £1 million in 1938. By far the majority of sales were made overseas, and it was the strong global distribution network that attracted Beecham to the business.

The New Cross factory was completely destroyed by Germany bombing during the Blitz in 1940. Production was transferred to the Macleans toothpaste factory in Brentford. Fruit Salt production was relocated to a site at Watford from 1946. The Watford site was closed in 1953, and production was returned to Macleans.

Eno purchased one third of the global supply of tartaric acid by the mid-1950s.

Eno Fruit Salts were introduced to the Indian market in 1972.

Eno’s Fruit Salts had been rebranded as simply “Eno” by the 1980s. It continued as a major Beecham product line.

Beecham was merged with SmithKline Beckman to form SmithKline Beecham in 1989. It amalgamated with GlaxoWellcome to create GlaxoSmithKline in 2000.

Eno is not available in the leading supermarkets and pharmacies of the UK, although it is available on Amazon. However it is still widely sold across the world as an antacid for the relief of indigestion. It is the leading over-the-counter heartburn treatment in India, where it holds 50 percent of the market, and Brazil, with other major markets including South Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Spain.

Canned food

Preserving history: C & E Morton

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C & E Morton was a large packaged foods producer. Workers from C & E Morton established Millwall Football Club.

J T Morton
John Thomas Morton (1830 – 1897) was born on Oxford Street, London. He established a small factory at Clayhills, Aberdeen from 1849 in order to supply sailing ships with preserved foods.

Morton had established a base in London by 1851.

Almost all production was destined for the export market. A major early product was tinned sardines.

Morton was a dedicated Puritan, and was a devout observer of the Sabbath. He was a reserved man, with very few close associates, and his only known sentiment was towards his mother. He was emotionally cool, but just and honest.

The head office and factory in London were based at Leadenhall Street by 1858. The site was located nearby to one of the largest meat markets in the world.

The London premises were relocated to a larger site on Leadenhall Street from 1866.

Expanding sales saw Clayhills production relocated to a new factory on Mount Street in the Rosemount area of Aberdeen from 1870.

A manufacturing facility was established at Millwall from around 1872, in a former oil factory belong to Price & Co.

Millwall Football Club was established by J T Morton tinsmiths in 1885.

The Aberdeen factory employed hundreds of workers by the 1880s. It was one of the largest and best-equipped canneries in Britain by 1892.

The success of J T Morton was based on a quality product, slim profit margins, and a firm focus on export markets.

An additional factory had been established at Falmouth, Cornwall by 1897.

John Thomas Morton died as a highly wealthy man in 1897. He left an estate valued at £714,186. He dedicated over half of his wealth to churches and charities. His manager, who had been with the company for nearly 40 years, and helped to build his fortune, received nothing.

C & E Morton
The business was inherited by his two sons, Charles Douglas Morton (1861 – 1944) and Edward Donald Morton (1866 – 1940). The two men had previously worked as underwriters for Lloyd’s, the insurance business. A curious codicil of their father’s will was that the two sons were not allowed to trade under the J T Morton name, so the firm became known as C & E Morton.

C D Morton was an energetic and generous man. The two brothers established agents in overseas markets, which increased sales. They travelled the world extensively to attend to their overseas trade.

C & E Morton was a substantial supplier of food to the military during the Boer War.

C & E Morton was one of the three largest producers of tinned fish in the world by 1909, alongside Maconochie Brothers and Crosse & Blackwell.

C & E Morton was registered as a public company with a capital of £650,000 in 1912. There were premises at Leadenhall Street, Millwall, Lowestoft, Aberdeen and Mevagissey, Polruan and West Looe in Cornwall.

1,600 workers at the Millwall factory went on strike in March 1914, in protest against girls under the age of 18 being hired, which they argued threatened to undercut their wages. The strike resulted in a victory for the workforce.

Morton was singular among preserved provisions manufacturers in normally refusing to hire under 18 year olds. They claimed that they had been driven to do so because of difficulties in sourcing sufficient labour. They also asserted that their factory workers were among the most highly-paid in London.

Rations were produced for the British military during the First World War. The company continued to pay half-wages to its staff who were serving in the armed forces.

C & E Morton entered the home market from 1923-4.

Crosse & Blackwell planned to acquire C & E Morton in 1926, but the proposed deal fell through due to an uncertain economic climate.

Increasing import tariffs overseas hurt the business during the 1930s. Factories were established in foreign markets in order to circumvent such charges.

R S Murray & Co, a confectionery manufacturer, was acquired in 1936.

There were three large factories at Millwall, Cubitt Town and Lowestoft in 1939. Thousands of people were employed. The Lowestoft site was the largest herring cannery in Britain.

E D Morton died in 1940 and left an estate valued at £213,295.

Declining exports of tinned herring to Scandinavia saw C & E Morton enter into the production of tinned peas at Lowestoft.

Sale to Beecham and Hillsdown Holdings
Beecham, a large consumer goods group, acquired the struggling C & E Morton for £180,000 in 1945. Beecham concentrated production at Lowestoft.

C & E Morton was absorbed into a new subsidiary, Beecham Foods, from 1955. Lowestoft began to produce other tinned vegetables as well as peas, such as runner beans, broad beans and carrots. Processed peas; dried peas that were reconstituted; began to be canned.

Beecham struggled to build scale in canned foods, and the location of the Lowestoft site rendered distribution costly. The factory was saved from closure due to a sense of social responsibility by Beecham management.

The tinned vegetables market had become stagnant by the early 1980s, as supermarket own-label offerings had taken significant market share. Morton Brands was sold to Hillsdown Holdings for £8.5 million in 1986.

The Lowestoft factory, which employed 160 people, was closed down in 1988. Morton branded products were available in Britain until at least the mid-1990s.

The Morton brand name is still used for tinned goods in India, although the former subsidiary has been independent since 1947.

Spreads & sauces

Curry favour: a history of J A Sharwood

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Sharwood’s is the leading Asian food brand in Britain.

James Allen Sharwood
James Allen Sharwood (1859 – 1941) was born in Islington, London. He was named for his grandfather, a prosperous Fenchurch Street wholesale druggist.

Source

Sharwood’s mother was a Scottish-born schoolmistress, who instilled in him the importance of paying attention to details.

Sharwood’s father was an excellent chemist, but a spoiled man. He spent extravagantly, and was declared bankrupt and sent to debtors’ prison in 1864. His marriage ended in divorce. J A Sharwood was to meet his father only once, in 1890, before he died in the workhouse in 1894.

J A Sharwood attended the Heath Mount School in Hampstead, and then went on to work in the City of London. He initially worked in insurance, and was then employed as a manager for a wine and spirits distributor.

Sharwood establishes a grocery business
J A Sharwood established himself as a wholesale grocer on Carter Lane in the City of London from 1888. Green Label mango chutney was introduced a year later.

Sharwood was intelligent, hard-working, and innovative. He had a keen interest in overseas travel and was fluent in French and German.

A family friend introduced Sharwood to Lord Dufferin (1826 – 1902), the Viceroy of India. Dufferin asked Sharwood to bring supplies from Europe for his French chef.

Lord Dufferin (1826 – 1902) as Viceroy of India

Legend has it that the grateful chef recommended that Sharwood visit P Vencatachellum at No. 1 Popham’s Broadway in Madras. Vencatachellum made a famed curry powder, which blended turmeric from Chittagong, coriander from Kerala, chillis from Orissa, and four secret ingredients. The product impressed Sharwood, and he arranged to distribute “Vencat” curry powder in Britain from 1893.

J A Sharwood is incorporated as a limited company
J A Sharwood was incorporated as a limited company with capital of £50,000 in 1899.  A factory, the Offley Works, was established at Vauxhall.

White Label Worcestershire Sauce was the main product by 1900. It was aged for five years.

F A Bovill & Co of City Road, London, a preserve manufacturer, was acquired in 1900.

J A Sharwood supplied the prestigious Cunard ocean liners with foodstuffs from 1902.

Sharwood had entered into retirement by 1927, and he settled in Cape Town, South Africa.

J A Sharwood advertised itself as “the largest dealers in Indian condiments in the world” by 1933.

Sharwood died in 1941 and his effects in England were valued at £7,296.

Sale of J A Sharwood and subsequent growth
Cerebos, a British foods company, acquired J A Sharwood for £982,047 in 1962. The Offley Works were divested and production was relocated to the Cerebos factory in Greatham, Hartlepool.

Cerebos was acquired by Rank Hovis McDougall (RHM) in 1968.

Sharwood’s was heavily marketed and the brand dominated the British chutney market by the 1970s. Sharwood’s held a Royal Warrant to supply chutney and curry powder to Queen Elizabeth II by 1975.

The British market for Indian groceries grew, and Sharwood’s sales doubled between 1989 and 1994. Sharwood’s held 74 percent of the mango chutney market by 1991.

Company headquarters were relocated from London to Egham in Surrey from 1991.

Sharwood’s held one third of the Oriental foods market by 1998.

The Greatham factory was closed in 2001, and Sharwood’s production was relocated to Wythenshawe, Manchester.

RHM was acquired by Premier Foods for £1.2 billion in 2007. The Wythenshawe factory was closed in 2009, and Sharwood’s production was relocated to Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

Note
According to information from Premier Foods, the Sharwood company archive was accidentally disposed of by a novice marketer, and no longer exists.

Tobacco

Close but no cigar: Cope Brothers

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Cope Brothers of Liverpool operated the largest tobacco factory in the world.

Establishment
George Cope (1823 – 1888) and Thomas Cope (1827 – 1884) began to sell cigars, snuff and tobacco from 63 Paradise Street, Liverpool from 1848.

Cope Brothers had entered into tobacco manufacturing by 1853, with a factory on Lord Nelson Street, adjacent to Lime Street Railway Station. George Cope was responsible for the manufacturing arm of the firm, while Thomas Cope managed the business as a whole.

The largest tobacco factory in the world
Cope Brothers was one of the first tobacco manufacturers in Britain to employ a female workforce.  Women were first employed following a factory strike in 1858. Female workers were to prove capable, and the factory employed around 597 women, and 160 males by 1872. The women were generally the daughters of shopkeepers, warehousemen and clerks, and worked shifts of six to eight hours. Charles Dickens and Emily Faithfull reported favourably on conditions in the factory, which was spacious and well-ventilated.

Cope’s Christmas entertainment at St George’s Hall, Liverpool in 1864. Image from the Illustrated London News.

Cope Brothers operated the largest tobacco factory in Britain by 1870. Cope Brothers employed 1,400 women by 1879.

Cope Brothers operated the largest tobacco factory in the world by 1884. The buildings occupied almost the entirety of one side of Lord Nelson Street. Cope Brothers was the largest manufacturer of cigarettes in England, with a production rate of 250,000 to 300,000 a week.

Thomas Cope died in 1884 with an estate valued at £199,000.

Cope Brothers is registered as a limited liability company
Cope Brothers was converted into a private limited liability company with a capital of £350,000 in 1885. John A Willox (1842 – 1905) was appointed as a director.

George Cope died in 1888. He was succeeded as managing director by his nephew, Thomas Henry Cope (1867 – 1913).

Cope’s Tobacco Works in 1889

Cope Brothers held four percent of the British tobacco market by 1892, second only to Wills of Bristol. The regular workforce at the Liverpool factory totalled around 1,500 people, many of them women and girls.

Increased competition
The American Tobacco Company (ATC) acquired Ogdens, a Liverpool tobacco manufacturer, in 1901. ATC operated Ogdens at a massive loss in order to undercut its rivals and increase its market share. Although the acquisition was to impact the entire British tobacco industry, Cope Brothers suffered more that most, perhaps due to its proximity to its rival, as well as its decision not to join Imperial Tobacco, formed as a defensive merger of major British tobacco companies.

John A Willox, chairman of Cope Brothers, decried “the deliberate and organised effort on the part of American capitalists to destroy a British industry and create a selfish monopoly for themselves”. On the other hand, the Daily Mail criticised Cope Brothers as “slow, easy-going [and] old-fashioned”, with “out-of-date methods”.

In a defensive move, Cope Brothers acquired Richard Lloyd & Sons of Clerkenwell, a London tobacco manufacturer best known for the Old Holborn brand, in 1902. William Jollyman (1844 – 1920), the proprietor of Richard Lloyd, was appointed general manager of Cope Brothers.

Robinson & Barnsdale, tobacco manufacturer of Nottingham, was acquired in 1905.

Escudo Navy De Luxe pipe tobacco was introduced by Cope Brothers from 1912.

H C Lloyd & Son Ltd of Exeter was acquired in 1924.

Strike issues and acquisition
Around 460 Cope Brothers employees went on strike in 1950 in protest against the employment of non-unionised labour. The strike lasted for nearly three months, and resulted in the dismissal of nearly 200 striking workers.

Cope Brothers was acquired by Gallaher in an exchange of shares which valued the company at around £1 million in 1953.

At the time purchase of American tobacco was rationed by the British Government, and Gallaher acquired Cope Brothers to increase its quota allowance. Gallaher was also attracted by the fast-growing Old Holborn rolling tobacco brand.

Gallaher closed the Cope Brothers factory and sold the site to the Automatic Telephone and Electric Company. Meanwhile, capacity at the Richard Lloyd factory was increased.

All Cope Brothers branded products had been discontinued by 1965, with the exception of Escudo Navy De Luxe pipe tobacco. Various Richard Lloyd branded products were still produced, such as Old Holborn.

Old Holborn is still widely sold in Britain, and Escudo Navy De Luxe pipe tobacco is produced overseas by Scandinavian Tobacco Group.

Food

A history of KP Snacks

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KP is the second largest snack foods manufacturer in Britain.

Charles Kenyon establishes the business
Charles Kenyon (1832 – 1893) was born at Brierley in South Yorkshire. He served an apprenticeship to a confectioner in Barnsley.

Kenyon established a confectionery business on College Street, Rotherham, from 1853. His main manufacture was jam.

Kenyon relocated production to a larger site at Morpeth Street in Rotherham in order to meet increasing demand for his products. He was joined by his only son, Harry Kenyon (1862 – 1932), a warm and jovial man.

Harry Kenyon (1862 – 1932), date unknown

Charles Kenyon employed 27 people (five men, five boys, eight women and nine girls) by 1881.

Charles Kenyon was a conscientious, kind and generous man. He became an alderman in 1889, representing the Liberal party.

Kenyon, Son & Craven
Charles Kenyon was a keen Wesleyan Methodist, and it was through the church that he met Matthew Smith Craven (1845 – 1923), who produced jam at a large factory on Scarborough Street, Hull.

Kenyon and Craven merged their interests in 1891, and the business was incorporated as Kenyon, Son & Craven. Pickles, sauces and confectionery were produced, as well as jam.

All production was centralised at Rotherham from 1930, and the Hull factory was divested. The reduced overheads allowed the company to reduce its capital from £50,000 to £25,000.

Harry Kenyon died in 1932, and left a net personalty of £829.

Simon Heller acquires the business
Simon Heller (1906 – 1989) was born in Lithuania, and emigrated to Britain with his family as a child. He was proprietor of the Leeds-based Hercules Nut Company. Heller was appointed chairman of Kenyon, Son & Craven from 1943.

A new 40,000 sq ft factory was established at Eastwood in Rotherham from 1947.

Heller acquired Kenyon, Son & Craven in 1948, after his own factory in Leeds burned down. He began to produce roasted and salted hazelnuts.

KP salted peanuts were introduced from 1953, and soon achieved nationwide distribution.

Heller possessed a keen mathematical mind. He became a leading authority on nuts.

Kenyon, Son & Craven virtually created the salted peanut category in Britain, and achieved national dominance of KP Nuts with very little advertising. Production of jams and pickles were discontinued in order to focus on nut processing.

Kenyon, Son & Craven employed over 1,500 people by 1965.

Acquisition by United Biscuits
Kenyon, Son & Craven was acquired by United Biscuits for £3.5 million in 1968. Kenyon, Son & Craven was merged into Meredith & Drew, a United Biscuits subsidiary that it already supplied. Meredith & Drew crisps were rebranded with the KP name.

Kenyon Son & Craven was the largest nut processor in Europe by 1970. The peanuts were generally sourced from Malawi in Southeast Africa.

The following decades saw a number of important crisp launches, including Hula Hoops (1973), Skips (1974), Discos (1979), McCoy’s thick-ridged crisps (1985), budget-brand Space Raiders (1987), Frisps (1989) and Roysters bubble crisps (1992). Additionally, the Choc Dip product was introduced from 1982.

Simon Heller died in 1989 and left an estate valued at £3.8 million.

KP Foods acquired the Nik Naks and Wheat Crunchies brands in 2006.

KP Snacks was sold to Intersnack of Germany for around £500 million in 2012. The business employed around 1,500 people across factories in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Rotherham, and Billingham and Consett in County Durham.

Confectionery

H J Packer of Bristol

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H J Packer was the largest low-cost chocolate manufacturer in the world.

Packer and Burrows
Edward Packer (1848 – 1887) was a Quaker who worked for J S Fry & Sons of Bristol, a chocolate manufacturer, in the 1870s.

Edward Packer left Fry & Sons to commence chocolate manufacture for himself from 1881. He worked from his house at 11 Armory Square, and was assisted by his wife. Soon he employed eight people.

Packer entered into partnership with Henry John Burrows (born 1853). Unfortunately, trade immediately declined, and all employees other than members of the Packer family had to be dismissed.

Burrows acquired full control of the business from 1884. Burrows added his own initials to the company name, and began trading as H J Packer & Co.

Caleb Bruce Cole
Caleb Bruce Cole (1862 -1912) was a confectionery salesman in Bristol. He was impressed with his contact with H J Packer & Co, and borrowed £1,000 from his father to acquire the business in 1886. Around nine people were employed.

The business began to grow from around 1889. Cole identified a gap in the market, and began to manufacture high quality chocolate at an affordable price. The chocolates found a keen market among children.

Cole subverted the notion that low-cost food production need sacrifice standards of cleanliness or provision for the workforce.

In 1896 Cole was joined by his brother Horace, and William John Mansfield (1846 -1912) was employed as general manager.

A new factory was opened at Greenbank, Bristol in 1903. It covered four acres and was the largest low-cost chocolate factory in the world. 450 people were employed. Greenbank was situated on a major railway line, which allowed for convenient distribution.

H J Packer & Co became a limited company from 1908.

Carsons of Glasgow, with a share capital of £50,000, was acquired in January 1912. Carsons had been the first business to introduce chocolate assortment trays, and traded at the premium end of the market.

Caleb Bruce Cole died in June 1912. A progressive man, he was described as quiet and likeable. He died a wealthy man, with an estate valued at £259,937.

H J Packer & Co had a capital of £750,000 and employed 1,000 people by 1912.

A dedicated Carsons chocolate factory was established at Shortwood, Bristol, in order to supply the South and West of England markets, from 1914.

Packers was the fourth largest chocolate manufacturer in Britain by 1922, and the largest manufacturer of low-cost chocolate in the world.

The company struggled during the Great Depression.

The Carsons factory was divested in 1960 due to overcapacity.

The company name was changed to Carsons Ltd from 1962. The Carsons brand had become well-known as Britain’s largest producer of chocolate liqueurs, filled with some of the leading spirits, liqueur and fortified wine brands in the world.

Until 1961 liqueur chocolates could only be sold from licensed premises. This opening up of the market provided an opportunity.

Acquisition by Cavenham
Cavenham Foods, managed by James Goldsmith (1933 – 1997), gained control of Carsons in 1964.

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Goldsmith rebuilt and modernised the Carsons plant. He then retired all of the Carsons chocolate lines except for liqueurs, the only sector of the market which was experiencing a growth in sales. The liqueur chocolate market was largely dominated by imported brands such as Lindt, Ringer, Rademaker and Trumpf.

Carsons held over 29 percent of the liqueur chocolate market by 1966. This was achieved with minimal advertising. Instead Carson’s benefited from the advertising campaigns of spirits brands that were inside their chocolates; names such as Harvey’s Bristol Cream and Hennessy cognac.

Carsons liqueurs were being marketed under the Famous Names brand by 1966.

Elizabeth Shaw, an upmarket chocolate manufacturer, was acquired in 1968.

Carsons held over 40 percent of the British chocolate liqueur market by the late 1970s.

Recent history
Cavenham Confectionery was subject to a management buyout in 1981, and the company was renamed Famous Names Ltd. It was acquired by Imperial Tobacco in 1985.

Management bought control of Famous Names Ltd in 1988, and the company was renamed Elizabeth Shaw Ltd. Elizabeth Shaw Ltd was acquired by Leaf of Finland in 1990.

Elizabeth Shaw closed its outdated Greenbank factory in 2006. Production was relocated to factories across Britain and Europe.

Confectionery, Drink

Comfort for the table: Epps Cocoa

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Epps was the leading brand of cocoa in Victorian Britain.

Dr John Epps invents an instant cocoa
Dr John Epps (1805 – 1869) was the son of a wealthy Calvinist provision merchant in London.

Dr Epps became one of the pioneers of homeopathy in Britain. He established premises at Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury. He was joined by his brother, James Epps (1821 – 1907), from 1837.

Dr John Epps (1805 – 1869) inventor of Epps’ Cocoa Powder

The almost prohibitive duty on cocoa was greatly reduced in 1832, allowing the market to grow exponentially. Easily prepared cocoa had been difficult to procure, and the fat in the raw material was unpalatable for many. Dr John Epps discovered a way to make it more appetising, mixing the cocoa with 20 percent West Indies arrowroot and 13 percent sugar.

Epps’ cocoa was first sold in 1839 for the use of patients for whom tea and coffee were restricted. It was an instant cocoa powder, made by mixing with hot water or milk.

Dr John Epps was not the first person to invent soluble cocoa powder, but James Epps was largely responsible for introducing the product to the mass market. He heavily advertised Epps’ Cocoa, and had introduced a distinctive slogan, “grateful and comforting” by 1855.

Epps’ Cocoa was initially produced under contract by Daniel Dunn of Pentonville Road, who had invented instant cocoa powder in 1819.

James Epps begins to manufacture cocoa independently
James Epps had established his own factory at 398 Euston Road, London by 1863. He installed his nephew, Hahnemann Epps (1843 – 1916), as manager.

Epps & Co had grown to become the largest cocoa powder producer in Britain by 1878, with an output of nearly five million pounds (2.3 million kg) a year. To accommodate increasing production, a new steam-powered works was established at Holland Street, Blackfriars from 1878. At its peak Epps & Co processed half of all cocoa imports into Britain.

Steam Cocoa Mills, Holland Street, London
Steam Cocoa Mills, Holland Street, London

A short and slight man, James Epps kept a low public profile, unlike his gregarious brother John. He was known only for his work in business, and had few outside interests. He allowed his portrait to be taken only once, and he never granted an interview or issued a public statement. He was a hard worker, keen on a bargain, and somewhat controlling. Despite his massive wealth he lived in an unfashionable area of London.

Epps & Co sales peaked in the early 1880s. Nearly 15 million packets were sold in 1882. Sales began to decline as rivals introduced superior products. Cadbury and Rowntree invested in Van Houten presses, which allowed the manufacturer to remove the unpalatable cocoa butter from the product. Epps neglected to respond to this change.

Epps & Co is converted into a private company; sale to Rowntree
The business was converted into a private joint stock limited company known as James Epps & Co in 1893. The directors were James Epps, Hahnemann Epps and James Epps Jr (1856 – 1905), and the company had a capital of £200,000. No shares were offered to the public, and the company remained under family control.

Epps’ Cocoa had been overtaken in sales by Dr Tibbles’ Vi-Cocoa and Rowntree by 1898.

James Epps Jr (also known as Willie James Epps), the only son of James Epps, died of a heart attack in Jamaica in 1905. His gross estate was valued at £162,422.

James Epps (1821 – 1907), date unknown

James Epps died in 1907 and his gross estate was valued at £735,387. This was a larger estate than contemporaries in the food industry such as the mustard magnate Jeremiah James Colman (1830 – 1898), instant custard producer Alfred Bird (1849 – 1922) or James Horlick (1844 – 1921).

The estate was inherited by his nieces and nephews, principally James Washington Epps (1874 -1955), who became managing director of James Epps & Co. Hahnemann Epps became chairman.

Taylor Brothers Ltd, a London cocoa manufacturer, was acquired in 1907. Taylor’s cocoa was an economy offering, made with up to 20 percent cocoa shell, whereas Epps was a premium product, and contained no shell.

Epps’ Cocoa powder had been reformulated to include 44 percent sugar, 40 percent cocoa and 16 percent West Indies arrowroot by 1924.

Rowntree of York acquired James Epps & Co for £70,000 in 1926.

The Epps factory was closed in 1930, and the manufacture of Epps products was transferred to Whitefields Ltd of Plaistow.