Category Archives: Clothing & textiles

Clothing & textiles

Stocking trade: N Corah of Leicester

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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.

Footwear

A history of John White shoes

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John White was the largest shoemaking company in Britain.

John White enters the shoe trade
John White (1885 – 1974) was born into a strict Calvinist Baptist family. His ancestors had been engaged in the shoemaking trade since the mid-eighteenth century.

White was trained as a clicker, one who cuts the uppers of shoes and boots from leather. He cut the uppers of 650,000 pairs of shoes and boots before 1918.

White went into business for himself from 1918. He bought a small workshop in Rushden, Northamptonshire using savings of £200. He acquired a shoe press in 1919, and by the end of the year he had three employees.

White acquired small local factories during a trade slump. His business produced 100,000 pairs of boots and shoes by 1921.

The John White brand is introduced
John White launched his own brand of shoes in 1930. He promoted the new brand with national advertising.

John White was the largest shoemaking business in Britain by 1935. The Rushden factories employed 1,200 people, and 1.75 million pairs of shoes were manufactured each year.

White acquired a factory at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, from Owen Parker in 1936. Adjacent offices were constructed.

John White supplied both armies during the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939). Each side placed orders for 100,000 pairs of shoes.

White undercut his competitors by efficiently cutting costs and accepting low margins. He avoided trade union disruption by paying for piecework; payment for work completed, rather than basic wages.

White built a new factory on Lime Street, Rushden in 1939. It was designed by Albert Richardson (1880 -1964), a leading architect whose work included the Manchester Opera House.

John White had nine factories, a staff of nearly 2,000 and production of three million pairs of boots and shoes a year by 1941.

During the Second World War the business sold over eight million pairs of boots to the armed forces; one ninth of all footwear supplied to the troops.

White sells directly to retailers
Wholesalers were not marketing his product as effectively, so White began to sell directly to retailers after the Second World War. Profits mounted rapidly. The company employed 2,600 people by 1951.

John White was exporting 400,000 pairs of shoes a year to America by the 1950s, and the company accounted for 90 percent of British footwear exports. John White shoes were exported to 56 territories.

Expansion saw a factory opened in Corby, Northamptonshire in 1954.

White was a dynamic man, and had an obsession for efficiency. He invested heavily to ensure that he used the most modern shoe manufacturing equipment available.

John White retires; later history
John White retired in 1962. The company initially struggled in his absence, but had regained profitability by 1968.

George Ward of Leicester was acquired for £4 million in 1972. The name of the company was changed to Ward White Group.

G B Britton, a large footwear manufacturer, was acquired in 1973.

Ward White was the third largest footwear manufacturer in Britain in 1974. The company had 9,000 employees across nine countries.

The Ward White footwear business was subject to a management buyout, called UK Safety, in 1988.

The last remaining John White shoe factory closed in 1991.

The John White brand was revived in 2000.

Clothing & textiles

Crepe expectations: Grout & Co

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Grout & Co was the largest manufacturer of crepe in Britain.

Grout & Co is established
Joseph Grout (1781 – 1853) was born in Bocking, Essex. The family were apparently descended from Huguenot refugees from the Low Countries, and anglicized their name from Groot.

Joseph Grout became a saddle and harness maker. He began to manufacture “Norwich crepe”, a lower cost imitation of French crepe, at Patteson’s Yard, Magdalen Street, Norwich, from 1806.

Grout was the first person in Britain to produce crepe. He was soon joined in partnership by his brother George Grout (1781 – 1860).

Large mills were soon established at Lower Westwick Street, Norwich.

A silk factory was established at a former military barracks at St Nicholas Road, Great Yarmouth from 1815. The Yarmouth site was selected due to its lower labour costs.

An average of 3,908 people were directly employed in 1825. A large proportion of employees were young women aged 16 to 24.

A silk crepe factory had been established at Ponder’s End, Enfield, by 1829.

The capital invested by Grout & Co amounted to £143,546 in 1832. Around one third of raw silk came from Bengal, one third from China and one third from Italy.

The Great Yarmouth site was destroyed by fire in 1832, and had to be rebuilt.

Mills were established at Ditchingham, Norfolk, around 1833.

The largest manufacturer of crepe in Britain
The Grout brothers became extremely wealthy, and had entered into retirement by 1835. Management of the firm was taken over by William Martin (died 1849), a close relative.

The Great Yarmouth factory employed 1,100 workers in 1837. 970 people were employed at Norwich, and 560 were employed at Ditchingham.

Following the death of William Martin in 1849, the firm was managed by John Brown, a Mr Robison and a Mr Hall.

The Norwich, Yarmouth and Ditchingham mills regularly employed over 2,000 people by 1854. The predominant manufacture was gauze, which was then sent to the Ponder’s End factory to be converted into crepe for mourning purposes.

Grout & Co was the largest manufacturer of crepe in Britain by 1862. Over 3,000 workers were employed. The Norwich factory was the principal production site.

Grout & Co was the leading crepe manufacturer in Britain in 1887. There were warehouses in London, Manchester, Paris and New York, and factories at Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Ditchingham and Ponder’s End.

Crepe went out of fashion in Britain, and almost all production was exported to Latin countries by 1890. That year, manufacturing was centralised at Great Yarmouth, and all other factories were closed. The company also expanded into other textiles.

Grout & Co and Courtauld dominated English crepe manufacture by this time.

Grout & Co was registered as a company in 1894.

The Great Yarmouth factory employed around 1,000 workers in 1907.

Crepe bandages were manufactured from 1920.

Grout & Co produced silk parachutes during the Second World War.

Sale of the company and closure of the factory
Grout & Co was acquired by Carrington & Dewhurst, the largest manufacturer of filament fabrics in Europe, in 1962.

Carrington & Dewhurst merged with Viyella to form Carrington Viyella in 1970, one of the largest textile manufacturers in Europe.

The factory was relocated to Harfreys Industrial Estate, Great Yarmouth, from 1975. Grout & Co focused on the production of crepe bandages.

Smith & Nephew acquired the Great Yarmouth factory from Coats Viyella in 1994. The factory was closed in 1996.

Footwear

Admirable feat: Lilley & Skinner

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Lilley & Skinner was one of the largest footwear retailers in Britain, and operated the largest shoe shop in the world for many years.

Early history
Thomas Lilley (1814 – 1899) established a shoe manufacturing business at Southwark, London in 1835. He sold ready-to-wear shoes, a relative novelty for the time, when most footwear was tailor-made.

Lilley established a factory at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire in 1851. Northamptonshire was a nucleus for the footwear manufacturing trade.

Thomas Lilley employed 233 people in 1871. He became a generous philanthropist. He enjoyed good relations with his workforce and was regarded as fair and honest.

Lilley employed 42 men and 12 boys in 1881. A factory had been established at Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire by this time.

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Thomas Lilley II (1846 – 1916) joined his father in partnership and was joined by his brother-in-law, William Banks Skinner (1847 – 1914) in 1881. By this time there were six shoe shops.

Lilley & Skinner is incorporated
Lilley & Skinner was incorporated in 1894. The company had a capital of £260,000 when it made a limited offering of shares to the public in 1896. Its head office was at Paddington Green, London. There were factories at Bristol and Chesham and a leather warehouse at Rushden.

There were around 50 retail shops by 1896, all situated in London and its suburbs. There was a large export trade to Australia and South Africa.

The London warehouse was destroyed by fire in 1900. The Bristol factory was destroyed by fire in 1905.

Thomas Lilley II left an estate valued at £100,801 in 1916. He was succeeded as chairman by his son, Thomas Lilley III (1872 – 1951), a shrewd and financially astute man who would guide the company to greater prosperity.

A flagship store was opened on Oxford Street in 1921. It was extended to become the largest shoe shop in the world in 1931.

Lilley & Skinner becomes a public company
Lilley & Skinner became a public company in 1950.

Thomas Lilley III died with an estate valued at £178,697 in 1951. He was succeeded as chairman and managing director by his son, Thomas Lilley IV (1902 – 1960).

Thomas Lilley IV (1902 – 1960)

Lilley & Skinner had a fully-paid share capital of £2 million in 1951. The company was one of the largest footwear retailers in Britain, with 84 branches mostly situated in London and the Home Counties. The company employed over 2,300 people.

Benefit Footwear, with 143 branches mostly located in the Midlands and the North East of England, was acquired in 1956.

Merger with Saxone and acquisition by British Shoe Corporation
Lilley & Skinner merged with Saxone to form Saxone, Lilley & Skinner, in 1956. Thomas Lilley played a major part in the merger, and became chairman of the new company. Saxone, Lilley & Skinner was second in size only to British Shoe Corporation. Saxone concentrated on men’s and children’s shoes, whilst Lilley & Skinner specialised in fashion.

Saxone, Lilley & Skinner had 470 retail outlets by 1958, including over 60 department store concessions. There were five factories in Kilmarnock and Leicester. A new distribution warehouse was opened in Leeds in order to supply northern branches in 1959.

Thomas Lilley IV died with an estate valued at £429,625 in 1960.

British Shoe Corporation acquired Saxone, Lilley & Skinner for £27.3 million in 1962. Following the takeover, BSC controlled forty percent of the leather shoe trade in Britain.

Lilley & Skinner still operated the largest shoe shop in the world in 1974. Located at 360-366 Oxford Street, it had 76,000 square feet of floor space across four storeys. It had ten departments, 250,000 pairs of shoes and a staff of 180. An average of over 45,000 people visited the store every week.

The Oxford Street site was sold off in the early 1990s, and the retail brand had disappeared by the late 1990s.

The rights to the Lilley & Skinner name were acquired by Stead & Simpson in 1998. Stead & Simpson reintroduced Lilley & Skinner as an upmarket ladies’ shoe brand. Stead & Simpson was acquired by Shoe Zone in 2008. Shoe Zone still use Lilley & Skinner as an in-house brand.

Footwear

Hell for leather: Pocock Brothers

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Pocock Brothers was the largest boot manufacturer in the world.

Thomas Pocock (1791 – 1879) was born in Shoreditch, London. He entered into business as a boot manufacturer and leather merchant from 1815.

Pocock was soon assisted by his three sons, Thomas Gotch Pocock (1815 – 1883), Alfred Pocock (1822 – 1887) and Ebenezer Pocock (1824 – 1902).

By 1855 the sons had taken over management of the business, and began to trade as Pocock Brothers. A boot factory was established at 20-23 Southwark Bridge Road, London.

A workforce of 400 to 500 was employed by 1871.

T G Pocock was a model employer, guided by his Christian faith. He provided a pension scheme for elderly and infirm employees and was well-regarded by his workforce.

Pocock Brothers also produced padded cells for “lunatic asylums” by 1886.

Pocock Brothers advertised itself as the largest boot manufacturer in the world in 1888.

Ebenezer Pocock retired in 1889 to leave three brothers, Thomas Pocock (1844 – 1891), George Pocock (born 1853) and Percy Rogers Pocock (1857 – 1934) to manage the business.

Pocock Brothers employed well over 1,000 men and women by 1891, and along with Rabbits & Co, was the largest shoe manufacturer in London.

Pocock Brothers held contracts to supply boots to the Army and the Metropolitan Police in the 1890s.

The retail operations were sold to Freeman Hardy & Willis in 1910, but the boot manufacturing operations continued.

300 people were employed in 1914.

The business was registered as a limited company, Pocock Brothers Ltd, from 1927.

By 1988 the business was based at 235 Southwark Bridge Road and was a leading supplier to the shoe repair trade.

Footwear

A new angle: Saxone Shoe Company

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Saxone was the largest footwear manufacturer in Scotland.

Origins
Clark & Co of Kilmarnock was established in 1820. The firm largely manufactured shoes for export, particularly to South America.

Following the implementation of import tariffs in many countries, Clark began to open retail outlets across Great Britain from 1887.

The company factory at Titchfield Street, Kilmarnock, employed 150 people by 1904.

F & G Abbott Ltd was a shoe retailer established in 1902 which purchased much of its stock from Clark & Co. Saxone was their own-label brand for an American-style men’s shoe.

The Saxone brand offered half sizes, as well as five different fittings for each size. This wide offering of varieties was the key behind its success.

Saxone Shoe Company
Clark & Sons merged with F & G Abbott in 1908 to form the Saxone Shoe Company. George Clark (1861 – 1937) and George Sutherland Abbott (1862 – 1940) became joint-managing directors.

The Saxone Shoe Co went public with a share capital of £1 million in 1928. There were 106 retail stores by this time.

George Clark, chairman and managing director, died in 1937. G S Abbott died in 1940 and left an estate valued at £133,592.

Throughout the Second World War a large proportion of production was devoted to military service contracts, including regulation army boots and officer’s footwear.

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1,200 people were employed at 180 retail branches by 1948, and 1,000 people were employed at the Kilmarnock factory.

Merger with Lilley & Skinner
The company merged with Lilley & Skinner to form Saxone, Lilley & Skinner in 1956. The merger combined the second and third largest shoe retailers in Britain, largely in order to combat the rise of British Shoe Corporation, the largest shoe retailer in Britain.

The merger was to prove a success, and profits rose considerably. Saxone, Lilley & Skinner operated 475 shops, four major factories and 15 repair workshops by 1961.

Acquisition by British Shoe Corporation
Saxone, Lilley & Skinner was acquired by British Shoe Corporation, the largest shoe retailer in Britain, for £27 million in 1962. The merged company was the largest shoe chain business in the world with 40 percent of the British shoe market and 2,000 shops.

British Shoe realised between £10 million and £15 million by selling the freehold of the majority of the Saxone, Lilley & Skinner sites and leasing them back.

The company introduced American Hush Puppie shoes to Britain in the 1960s.

Saxone manufacturing was severely affected by Italian imports to Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Saxone had 111 outlets and 1,100 full-time equivalent staff in 1995, but the chain was loss-making. British Shoe Corporation closed the unprofitable Saxone stores in 1996, and the profitable outlets were sold to Facia. Later that year Facia entered receivership and 61 Saxone stores were acquired by the Stylo sports footwear group (now Barratts of Bradford).

Footwear

All’s fair in war: Faire Brothers of Leicester

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Faire Brothers of Leicester operated the largest shoe findings factory in England.

Watkin Lewis Faire (1819 – 1892) was born in Kidderminster. He relocated to Leicester from 1850 to work as an agent for the Leicester Temperance Society. He visited 3,030 houses in 1851.

Faire established Faire Brothers, lace manufacturers, in partnership with his brother in 1855.

His son, Arthur Faire (1854 – 1933), established Smith Faire & Co, boot and shoe manufacturers, in 1876.

Watkin Lewis Faire retired from Faire Brothers in 1886, and the business was continued by his three sons, Joseph Louis Faire (1841 – 1898), John Edward Faire (1843 – 1929) and Samuel Faire (1849 – 1931).

Watkin Lewis Faire died in 1892, and his funeral took place immediately after that of Thomas Cook, travel agent and fellow temperance advocate.

Faire Brothers operated factories at Wimbledon Street and Southampton Street, Leicester by 1892.

Joseph Louis Faire was the head of Faire Brothers when he died in 1898.

Watkin Lewis Faire built a new factory at Rutland Street, Leicester in 1898. The firm acquired a factory at Borrowash, Derbyshire, in 1900.

Faire Brothers became a limited company with a capital of £250,000 in 1900.

St George’s Mills, Wimbledon Street, Leicester was the largest shoe findings factory in England by 1912. Faire Brothers employed 600 workers. Most of the factory machinery was built by the company itself.

St George's Mills in Leicester
St George’s Mills in Leicester

John Edward Faire was chairman by 1916.

Faire Brothers received a contract to provide around one million pairs of braces for the army in 1916. The firm also manufactured suspenders and garters.

Faire Brothers had seven factories across Leicester, Burton upon Trent and Borrowash in Derbyshire by 1917. They included the largest small wares factories in Britain.

During the First World War, the firm was able to take a large share of the shoe and boot lace market, which had largely been held by German manufacturers.

John Edward Faire died in 1929 and left a gross estate valued at £166,113.

Sir Samuel Faire died in 1931 and left £271,874. A Liberal Unionist, he had been a keen philanthropist throughout his life.

Ernest Alfred Lillie, company chairman, died in 1956. By this time Faire Brothers had factories at Burton upon Trent, Thorne near Doncaster, Mansfield, Borrowash and Leicester.

Faire Brothers was acquired by Phipps & Son in 1967.

Faire Brothers employed 1,000 people by 1970, including 400 at the Rutland Street factory. That year the unprofitable braces and suspenders manufacturing operation was closed down due to declining sales.

Phipps extensively streamlined the Faire Brothers operations, reducing eight factories to two large factories and two smaller specialist supporting factories.

Smith Faire & Co was liquidated in 1982.

Chamberlain Phipps entered into receivership in 1996 and was subject to a management buyout.

Footwear

Sole survivor: Manfield of Northampton

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Manfield & Sons became one of the largest shoemakers in Northampton, and opened retail shops in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Moses Philip Manfield establishes the business
Moses Philip Manfield (1819 – 1899) was born in Bristol, the son of a poor shoemaker. He was raised as a Unitarian.

At the age of twelve he was apprenticed as a boot closer (one who sewed the uppers of boots) at a shoe factory. He eventually rose to the position of manager.

Manfield relocated to manage a business in Northampton in 1843. The business failed, but local Unitarians assisted Manfield to re-establish himself.

Manfield decided to target the lower-end of the market, and government contracts.The business employed 200 workers by 1851.

Manfield built a large factory on Campbell Square, Northampton in 1862.

Growth of the business and expansion into retail
Manfield became one of the leading shoe manufacturers in Northampton. The business employed a workforce of 688 people by 1871.

The introduction of mechanisation allowed Manfield to lower staffing levels. He employed 231 men and 20 boys in 1881.

Harry Manfield (1855 – 1923) and James Manfield (1857 – 1925) entered the firm as partners in 1883, and the business became known as Manfield & Sons.

Retail branches were opened in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Sheffield and Birmingham in 1884. A retail branch was opened in Paris in 1889.

A larger factory was built on Wellingborough Road in 1892, and the Campbell Square site was closed. The new factory was capable of producing 350,000 pairs of shoes a year. It was the first shoe factory in England to utilise the American system of keeping all the workshops on the ground floor.

Moses Philip Manfield used this juncture to delegate day to day management of the firm to his two sons.

Moses Philip Manfield was knighted in 1894. He was one of the best known boot and shoe manufacturers in Britain.

Moses Philip Manfield died in 1899. There were over 30 retail shops by this time.

Retail branches were opened in Belgium and the Netherlands in 1901.

By 1910 the firm employed over 1,300 workers at its Northampton factory, and there were over 70 retail branches across Britain and Europe.

Manfield & Sons was incorporated as a private company in 1920.

The company employed 2,525 people by 1944.

Manfield & Sons was converted into a public company with an authorised capital of £3 million in 1950. The business could produce 27,000 pairs of shoes and boots in a week. There were 102 retail branches, including eight in Belgium and one in the Netherlands. The company employed around 2,500 people.

Loss of independence and recent history
Manfield & Sons was acquired by the Charles Clore (1904 – 1979) controlled J Sears & Co for £3.37 million in 1956. Manfield operated 180 retail branches, as well as interests in France and the Netherlands.

The quality middle-market Manfield was merged with Saxone, another Sears subsidiary, in 1990. A new chain of 30 Manfield stores was established to cater to the over-40s market.

Sears divested a number of shops, including Manfield, to Fascia in 1995. Manfield in the Netherlands was subject to a management buyout in 1996. Facia entered into administration in 1997.

Manfield footwear and retail shops still exist in the Netherlands and France. In the Netherlands the chain has 69 stores and 620 employees. In France there are 33 Manfield stores.

Manfield shoes are still sold in Britain, where the brand is owned by the Jacobson Group, which also owns the Gola sportswear and Dolcis shoe brands.

Footwear

Clores out: J Sears & Co

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J Sears & Co was the largest shoe manufacturer and distributor in the world.

John George Sears establishes his business
John George Sears (1870 – 1916) was the son of a Northampton leather seller. He was raised as a Congregationalist.

Sears began his working life as a clicker (one who cuts the uppers for shoes and boots from leather). He eventually rose to the position of factory foreman.

Sears established J Sears & Co with a small factory on Derby Road, Northampton, in 1891. He was able to win market share from the strike-affected Manfield of Northampton in 1895.

Sears was joined by his brother, William Thomas Sears (1877 – 1950), from 1897.

J Sears & Co opened its first retail outlet in 1897. A branch was opened on Fleet Street, London in 1900.

A large factory on Adnitt Road, Northampton, was acquired in 1904.

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The J Sears & Co factory on Adnitt Road, Northampton (c.1913)

Much of the success of the business was due to extensive advertising, and the energy, bold application and sound judgement of J G Sears.

J Sears & Co goes public
J Sears & Co went public with a capital of £350,000 in 1912. 12,500 pairs of boots were produced every week from one of the largest shoe factories in Britain. The company had 80 retail branches, including 47 in London, which targeted the mid-range market and operated on a high sales, low-margin basis. The shops pioneered the establishment of attractive window displays, with clearly marked prices.

J Sears & Co produced boots for the army during the First World War. The company employed 1,000 people in manufacture, and 1,000 people in retail by 1916.

Sears was a generous, likeable and unaffected man. Shortly after the public offering his health broke down, “undermined by years of almost superhuman activity”, according to the Taunton Courier. He died in 1916 with a net personalty of £356,287. William Thomas Sears succeeded his brother as chairman and managing director.

J Sears & Co acquires Freeman Hardy & Willis
J Sears & Co acquired Freeman Hardy & Willis, probably the largest shoe retailer in Britain, for over £4 million in 1928. The merger created the largest shoe manufacturing and distribution business in the world, with 796 shops and a market value of over £9 million.

J Sears & Co operated eight factories and 800 retail outlets by 1934. Approximately 10,000 people were employed. Around eight million pairs of shoes were sold every year, supplying about 20 percent of the British market. The company operated a retail outlet in every British community with a population of over 20,000.

William Thomas Sears retired as chairman and managing director in 1948.

J Sears & Co is acquired by Charles Clore
Investor Charles Clore (1904 – 1979) had noticed that the J Sears & Co property assets were undervalued on the company balance sheet. His acquisition of the company for £4.5 million in 1953 represented the first successful hostile takeover in British history.

Clore immediately sold around half of the freehold and leasehold shop properties to gain over £4.6 million. He later commented, “In some businesses the profits earned show that existing assets are not being employed in the fullest capacity… [no] business can afford to have its resources remaining stagnant”. He also announced plans to modernise the business, update branches and increase export sales.

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Clore acquired Dolcis, with 250 shoe shops, in 1956.

By 1959 Clore controlled 1,500 shoe shops, and accounted for 25 percent of all footwear sales in Britain. Sears manufactured footwear accounted for around one third of sales.

Saxone-Lilley & Skinner, with 475 shoe shops, was acquired in 1962. Sears became the largest shoemaker in Europe, and with 2,000 shops, controlled over half of the footwear retail trade in Britain. Charles Clore was reputedly one of the richest men in the world.

J Sears & Co divested its shoe factories in a management buyout in 1988.

J Sears & Co had exited the shoe retail business by 1998.

Footwear

Bouncing back: Rabbits & Co

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Edward Harris Rabbits established one of the largest shoe factories in the world. His financial backing for Charles Booth helped to establish the Salvation Army.

Edward Harris Rabbits
Edward Harris Rabbits (1818 – 1874) was born in Frome, Somerset, the son of an agricultural labourer.

Edward Rabbits borrowed half a crown and established himself as a shoe maker and retailer in Newington, London. His factory was at the Elephant Buildings, Newington Butts.

Edward Harris Rabbits (1818 – 1874)

Edward Rabbits was a argumentative and characterful man. Originally a Wesleyan Methodist, he tired of the formality of the church and became a Methodist Reformer, and later a dedicated member of the evangelical Methodist New Connexion.

Edward Rabbits employed 90 men and 85 women by 1851. He operated multiple retail branches by 1856.

The E H Rabbits shoe factory was described as one of the largest in the world by 1861. With a height of 68 feet, it was one of the tallest industrial buildings in London. The warehouse constantly employed nearly 400 people. Well-heated and well-lit, it also contained a sixty foot-long lecture hall for the discussion of religion and philanthropy.

Edward Rabbits first met William Booth (1829 – 1912), a penniless yet gifted Methodist preacher, in 1850. He encouraged Booth to continue as a preacher, provided him with financial support, and introduced him to his future wife, Catherine Mumford. Booth went on to establish the Salvation Army in 1865.

Edward Rabbits died in 1874. He had been a keen donor to religious and philanthropic causes throughout his life.

Rabbits & Sons
The business passed to William Rabbits (1827 – 1878), brother to Edward Rabbits, who was also a boot maker with a factory at St Thomas’s Works, Whites Grounds, Bermondsey. The business was renamed Rabbits & Sons.

William Rabbits was a modest and hard-working man. He died with an estate valued at under £70,000 in 1878.

The business was managed by his executors until 1880, when it was taken over in partnership by his sons, William Thomas Rabbits (1847 – 1908) and Charles Joseph Whittuck Rabbits (1854 – 1901). By this time the firm had 18 retail outlets across London.

William Thomas Rabbits left the partnership in 1887, likely due to ill health, and Charles Rabbits became sole proprietor.

Charles Rabbits registered the business as a private limited liability company in 1891. Rabbits & Sons ranked as one of the largest shoe manufacturers in London, rivalled only by Pocock Brothers in scale.

A workforce of 671 was employed in 1893. Charles Rabbits was recognised as a model employer, who supported pension schemes and sickness insurance for his staff.

Charles Rabbits died in 1901, with a gross estate valued at £321,179.

Rabbits & Sons was acquired by Freeman Hardy & Willis, a larger shoe retail chain, in 1903.

The Elephant Buildings at Newington Butts had become an engineering store by 1909.