Category Archives: Tobacco

Tobacco

A history of Lambert & Butler

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How did Lambert & Butler become the leading cigarette brand in Britain?

Lambert & Butler establish the business
Charles Lambert (1814 – 1887) and Charles Butler (1813 – 1882) established a cigar manufacturing business at 38 St John Street in Clerkenwell, London from 1834.

Lambert & Butler relocated to 142 Drury Lane, near Covent Garden, from 1838. The business began to manufacture tobacco, as well as cigars.

Lambert & Butler showcased their English cigars, made from Havana tobacco, at the Great Exhibition of 1851. As a curiosity, the firm also exhibited a sample of English-grown tobacco, raised in Cambridgeshire.

Lambert & Butler had extended their premises to include 141 and 142 Drury Lane by 1852.

Lambert & Butler were advertising across England by 1863.

The next generation takeover management; mass-production of cigarettes begins
The sons of the founders, Charles Edward Lambert (1843 – 1910) and Charles Butler Jr (1848 – 1898), entered into the partnership in the 1860s. Their skilled management was to afford the business considerable impetus.

Lambert & Butler had a capital of £87,200 in 1870.

Charles Butler Sr died with an estate valued at over £47,000 in 1882.

The Drury Lane premises buildings were demolished and rebuilt in 1895. A Luddington cigarette machine was installed. Machine-made cigarettes had lower production costs, and rendered cigarettes affordable for the working classes.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Lambert & Butler had grown to become the third largest tobacco business in Britain, after Wills and Cope Brothers. Lambert & Butler had an excellent marketing department, but competition with Wills was hampered by the more efficient patented methods of production at their major rival.

Charles Butler Jr died in 1898 with an estate valued at £79,558.

The firm was converted into a private limited liability company, Lambert & Butler Ltd, with an authorised capital of £450,000, in 1899.

Lambert & Butler employed 1,100 people by 1900. The company held around ten percent of the British cigarette market, behind Wills and Ogden’s, and alongside John Player & Sons.

Lambert & Butler joins Imperial Tobacco
Imperial Tobacco was formed in 1901 as a combine of British manufacturers designed to combat the encroachment of American Tobacco into their country. Lambert & Butler joined as the second largest constituent of the group. Day to day operations at Lambert & Butler continued unchanged.

A large extension of the factory and offices at Drury Lane was completed in 1908.

Charles Edward Lambert died of heart failure in 1910. His estate was valued at £659,193. Photographs of Lambert depict a quintessentially patriarchal Edwardian figure, a mustachioed, well-built fellow who was rarely seen without a cigar in hand.

Walter Butler (1857 – 1913), a member of the Imperial Tobacco executive committee, died in 1913. He left a gross estate valued at £175,599.

Charles Rupert Butler (1873 – 1915) became managing director of Lambert & Butler until his sudden death from heart failure in 1915.

The First World War created a shortage of labour; 96 percent of male Lambert & Butler employees had either enlisted or attested by April 1916. Women were hired to provide cover for the enlisted men.

The principal concern was the manufacture of pipe tobacco by 1928. By this time there was a cigarette factory at Margravine Road, Fulham.

Lambert & Butler launched Varsity, the first filter-tipped cigarette from Imperial Tobacco, in 1936. It was withdrawn from sale around 1940 due to low demand.

Closure of the factory; introduction of the Lambert & Butler King Size cigarette
The sole remaining Lambert & Butler factory was closed in 1958. Its antiquated design meant it was nearly half as efficient as the highest-performing Imperial Tobacco facility. Lambert & Butler production continued at other Imperial Tobacco subsidiary companies. The Lambert & Butler brand accounted for just 0.2 percent of Imperial Tobacco cigarette sales.

The Drury Lane headquarters were closed in 1961.

Lambert & Butler was a relatively small subsidiary throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with a focus on cigars and pipe tobacco.

The Lambert & Butler King Size cigarette was launched in 1979, and was to quickly prove a huge success. It was the highest-selling cigarette brand in the United Kingdom in 2008.

Tobacco

Whiff of success: Henri Wintermans

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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.

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.

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John Hodge Tobacco Co

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The John Hodge Tobacco Company was the largest exporter of dark leaf tobacco from the United States.

John Henderson Hodge (1852 – 1935) was born in Glasgow in 1852 to James Hodge and Catherine (nee Henderson). His father was a partner in J&T Hodge, which operated a tobacco factory employing four men and 18 boys in 1861.

John H Hodge emigrated to the United States in 1876 and established the John Hodge Tobacco Company at Madisonville, Kentucky. He was joined by his brother, Thomas Hodge (born 1859) in 1880.

Hodge married a Kentuckian, Kitty G Hodge (born 1856). His sons included James (born 1881), William R (born 1886) and John H (born 1889).

The Hodge tobacco factory at Henderson, Kentucky was struck by fire in 1895.

James Hodge retired from J & T Hodge, tobacco and cigarette manufacturers of St Ninian Street, Glasgow, in 1902, leaving William Hodge as the sole partner. James R Hodge was a witness to the transaction.

The John Hodge Tobacco Co acquired three million pounds of tobacco for about $175,000 in a single transaction in 1913.

The Hodge Tobacco Co, wholesaler and exporter of Henderson and Hopkins counties, Kentucky, employed 554 people in 1926.

John Henderson Hodge died in 1935.

James Hodge died in 1944.

Hodge Tobacco Co employed 200 workers during peak season in 1965, and had annual sales of over $1.5 million.

The business was operated by Thomas Hodge (1925 – 2011), the son of William Hodge, until its dissolution in 1972.

Tobacco

A brief history of Imperial Tobacco

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Imperial Tobacco dominated the British tobacco trade throughout much of the twentieth century.

Background and formation
Wills of Bristol employed about 1,000 workers by 1889. The business was best known for the Woodbine brand. Informed by their Congregationalist principles, the Wills family had, by 1895, introduced financing for a staff canteen, a convalescent home, a sanatorium, a resident nurse and doctor, paid holidays and a number of recreational clubs.

Imperial Tobacco was formed in 1901 by the merger of thirteen leading British tobacco companies. Wills controlled the combine with just over half of the equity, followed by Lambert & Butler of London, Mitchell of Glasgow and John Player of Nottingham.

It was a defensive merger following the acquisition of Ogden of Liverpool, one of Britain’s leading cigarette manufacturers, by the highly capitalised American Tobacco Company.

The businesses in the combine retained their own brands and salesmen, but pricing and accounting were organised centrally.

Salmon & Gluckstein, a retail tobacconist with 184 branches, was acquired for over £1.25 million in 1902, largely to prevent its acquisition by American Tobacco.

American Tobacco sold Ogden to Imperial in 1902, and both companies agreed to avoid its rivals’ domestic market. The global market was to be catered for by a new company called British American Tobacco, with a two third stake held by American Tobacco and one third held by Imperial.

Domination of the British tobacco market
Imperial Tobacco estimated it had “rather over 50 percent” of the British tobacco market by 1904. Woodbine was the highest-selling cigarette brand in the world.

Imperial Tobacco employed over 10,000 people by 1909, and three quarters of the workforce were female.

Imperial Tobacco held 87.5 percent of the British tobacco market in 1913. This share had declined to 72.5 percent by 1920, but included 91 percent of all cigarette sales.

Imperial Tobacco was the largest British public company by 1926.

Imperial Tobacco had seen its virtual monopoly on cigarettes corroded by the re-emergence of competitors such as Carreras, Gallaher and Godfrey Phillips by the late 1920s.

Imperial Tobacco employed 40,000 people across 27 factories by 1933.

Imperial Tobacco was the second largest industrial company in the world by 1937, outranked in market capitalisation by only General Motors.

John Player overtook Wills to become the largest single Imperial Tobacco subsidiary in the 1940s.

Imperial Tobacco held 78.8 percent of the British tobacco market in 1955.

Imperial Tobacco was the third largest company in the world outside the United States as measured by sales in 1957.

Wills Embassy was introduced as a filter cigarette from 1962. It was an overnight sensation, and was the highest-selling filtered cigarette in Britain by 1963. Embassy was the overall leading cigarette in Britain by 1965.

Imperial held 66 percent of the British tobacco market in 1968, followed by Gallaher (Benson & Hedges) with 29 percent. Carreras (Rothmans, Dunhill) was third in the market with a seven percent share.

Relative decline of the business
Imperial Tobacco diversified away from tobacco from the 1960s and changed its name to Imperial Group in 1973.

Imperial Group’s share of the British cigarette market had declined to just 37 percent by 1986.

Hanson Trust acquired Imperial Group for £2.7 billion in 1986.

Hanson Trust sold off non-core assets, such as the Courage brewing business to Elders for £1.4 billion, the hotel and restaurant business to Trusthouse Forte for £190 million, and the Golden Wonder crisps business to Dalgety for £87 million. The Ross Youngs frozen seafood business was sold to United Biscuits for £335 million. The sauces business, including Lea & Perrins and HP, was sold to BSN for £199 million.

The core tobacco business was reorganised. The range of products was reduced from 44 to 11, with a focus on five core brands. Five factories were reduced to three, with 1,000 redundancies.

Imperial Tobacco was demerged from Hanson Trust in 1996.