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.
George Oliver was the largest retailer of shoes and boots in the world.
George Oliver establishes a shoe retail business
George Oliver (1836 – 1896) was born in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, to humble circumstances. He was apprenticed to a cordwainer (shoemaker) in his native village.
Oliver opened his first shoe shop in Willenhall, Staffordshire in 1860. He employed three men by 1861. He opened a second shop with his brother Charles Oliver (1845 – 1897) in nearby Neath in 1868. Additional shops soon followed. The business catered towards the low-cost segment of the market.
George Oliver established a shoe factory in Wolverhampton in 1869, but it was sold in order to concentrate on the retail business in 1875. A distribution warehouse was established in Leicester. Oliver employed twelve men in 1881.
By 1889 there were over 100 shops, located in the more densely populated parts of Britain. George Oliver had one of the largest shoe retail businesses in Britain by 1896.
George Oliver had a shrewd mind and a keen business sense. His rugged exterior and brusque manner disguised a kindly personality. A keen Conservative and Freemason, he was a retiring man, renowned in Leicester for his generosity. He died from a sudden haemorrhage or stroke in 1896.
Charles Frederick Oliver takes over the business
George Oliver was succeeded in the management of the business by his brother Charles Oliver. A buoyant man with a genial temperament, he followed his brother by dying of a sudden haemorrhage or stroke in 1897.
Management of the business was taken over by George Oliver’s son, Charles Frederick Oliver (1868 – 1939).
In 1897 George Oliver advertised itself as the largest retailer of boots and shoes in the world, with 140 branches. Between 1915 and 1918 the firm claimed to be the largest footwear retailer in the world.
Charles Frederick Oliver was created a knight in 1933.
George Carter Oliver (1864 – 1935), a director of the firm and a son of George Oliver, died in 1935 with an estate valued at £158,206.
George Oliver was incorporated as a private company in 1936.
The third generation inherits the business
Sir Charles Frederick Oliver died in 1939, with a gross estate valued at £125,047. He was succeeded by his sons, Frederick Ernest Oliver (1900 – 1994) and Claude Danolds Oliver (1904 – 1987) as joint managing directors.
The family sold 36 percent of the company to the banking firm Robert Benson Lonsdale & Co in 1950 in order to pay the death duties of Lady Oliver.
George Oliver went public with a fully-paid share capital of £450,000 in 1954. Frederick Ernest Oliver was chairman. The business sold medium-priced footwear and hosiery for men, women and children. There were 111 branches, including 63 in England, principally in the South and West, and 48 in Wales. There were around 580 employees. Headquarters were at 18 Charles Street, Leicester.
F E Oliver was knighted in 1962 in recognition of his public and political service to Leicester. He was a modest, humble man. He retired from George Oliver in 1973.
George Oliver expands, and is acquired by Shoe Zone
With both firms suffering from the recession, George Oliver acquired Hiltons Footwear, a retail firm, for £9.8 million in 1981. Oliver had 130 branches and Hilton had 189, but only 25 overlapped. Oliver then sold and leased back 14 properties for £7.8 million to an investment group to fund the acquisition.
George Oliver had 1.7 percent of the British shoe retail market in 1986.
Timpson Shoes, with 228 shops, was acquired for £15 million in 1987. This doubled Oliver in size and created the third largest footwear retailing chain in Britain, with around 500 shops. The Timpson shoe shops were mostly located in Lancashire, Scotland, Teesside and Yorkshire, and only overlapped with Oliver in 30 locations. However they were not particularly profitable at the time of takeover.
George Oliver (now renamed the Oliver Group) acquired Frame Express, a London-based picture framing chain with 16 outlets for £1.8 million in 1989.
The Oliver Group employed around 4,000 people by 1989.
No members of the Oliver family worked at the Oliver Group by 1994.
The Oliver Group had become loss-making by 2000 and its estate of stores had been reduced to 258. The business was acquired by Shoe Zone of Leicester for £6.1 million. Oliver, Timpson and Olivers Timpson stores were rebranded under the Shoe Zone format. Loss-making outlets were closed.
As of 2020, the George Oliver name is still used as a Shoe Zone sub-brand.
R & J Dick became the largest boot manufacturer in the world. The business established the first national shoe shop chain in Britain. R & J Dick later became the largest manufacturer of industrial belting.
Robert and James Dick establish the business
Robert Dick (1820 – 1891) and James Dick (1823 – 1902) were the sons of a sailor who had settled in Kilmarnock. The father died young, and the widowed mother relocated to Glasgow, where she opened a grocer’s shop.
Robert Dick was apprenticed to a watchmaker, and James Dick was apprenticed to an upholsterer.
The two men decided to utilise gutta-percha, a gum-based leather substitute, to produce a low-cost watertight-soled shoe. Robert Dick made the moulds and James Dick prepared the material. The partnership of R & J Dick was formed in 1846, with premises at Gallowgate.
R & J Dick employed nine people by 1851. Robert Dick was the engineer, and James Dick managed the business.
R & J Dick enters into mass production
A four-storey factory was acquired at Greenhead, Glasgow in 1859. R & J Dick employed 400 people by 1861.
R & J Dick supplied much of the insulation for underwater telegraph cables during this period.
Retail shops were introduced, and R & J Dick became the first national shoe shop chain in Britain.
R & J Dick operated the largest footwear factory in the world by 1866. 60,000 pairs of boots were manufactured every week.
R & J Dick employed between 1,400 and 1,500 workers by 1867.
R & J Dick employed 943 people in 1881. The business was flagging by the early 1880s: the price of gutta-percha had risen exponentially as demand had increased, and the boots and shoes could no longer be manufactured at a competitive price.
James Dick became fatigued with business, and his health began to suffer. He married one of his employees in 1885, and emigrated to Australia.
Robert Dick invented a mechanical belt using balata gum in 1885. It was immensely strong, and resistant to oxidation, moisture and high temperatures.
R & J Dick employed 1,500 people in 1886.
Following the death of Robert Dick in 1891, James Dick reluctantly returned to manage the business. Before he left Australia, he acquired a one seventh share in the Broken Hill Silver Mine.
James Dick (1823 – 1902)
The balata belting patents expired in 1900, but the firm continued to hold a considerable share of the market.
James Dick died as one of the wealthiest British businessmen of his era in 1902, with an estate valued at £887,651. He was childless, and dedicated his wealth to charities and employees.
John Edward Audsley (1824 – 1920), an employee of 40 years, took over the management of the business.
R & J Dick is converted into a company
R & J Dick was converted into a company with a capital of £650,000 in 1908.
A new American tariff on belting imports led the company to establish a factory at Passaic, New Jersey in 1909. It could match the belting production levels of the Greenhead factory.
R & J Dick balata belting was used across the world by 1911. The product was advertised in languages as diverse as Burmese, Romanian and Hindustani.
In order to secure a supply of balata gum, R & J Dick acquired estates in Venezuela in 1918.
R & J Dick had an authorised capital of £925,000 by 1920.
Following a slump in balata prices, R & J Dick sustained heavy losses at its Venezuelan operation in 1921, and was forced to mortgage its properties in order to maintain sufficient working capital. The company blamed the losses on the “extravagance and laxity” of the Venezuelan manager.
After sustaining continued losses, a shareholder criticised the loss-making New Jersey factory as a “white elephant” in 1923.
Shoe production was discontinued in 1923. Retail shop leases were allowed to expire. The company sold twelve retail shops in Scotland to Greenlees & Son of Glasgow in 1935. The boot manufacturing business was divested in 1935.
R & J Dick employed just 235 people in 1961.
R & J Dick was acquired by the Pollard Ball and Roller Bearing Co for £1.1 million in 1962.
Stead & Simpson is best-remembered as one of the largest footwear retail chains in Britain. However the business has its origins in production, and became the largest footwear manufacturer in the world.
Establishment of the business
Edmund Stead (1803 – 1881) was born in Darlington, the son of a well-respected innkeeper and coachman. He relocated to Leeds from 1824, and found employment in the shoe-making trade.
Stead formed a partnership with Morris Simpson (1808 – 1888). The two men established a curriers shop, to process leather for shoemaking, on Kirkgate, Leeds from 1834. Stead & Simpson declared their intent as, “to supply every article of sterling quality at the lowest rate of profit”. Boot manufacturing commenced from around 1840.
Edward Simpson (1819 – 1904), brother to Morris Simpson, joined the partnership, initially as a bookkeeper. Edward Simpson was a likeable man who stood over six feet tall. He was a talented businessman, as well as a keen Wesleyan Methodist, and a Radical in politics.
Morris Simpson left the partnership in order to establish his own shoe-making business in 1844.
Problems in sourcing sufficient skilled labour in Leeds led the firm to open a second factory at London Road, Daventry in Northamptonshire in 1844.
Currier work began in Leicester from 1853, initially at Cank Street, before relocating to Belgrave Gate.
Footwear manufacturing had become the principal trade by the mid-1850s.
A Goodyear welting machine was installed in 1858, which enabled the replacement of hand-sewn labour.
Further premises in Leeds were acquired in 1860 in order to produce patent leather.
Stead & Simpson employed 314 people in 1861.
Two nephews enter the firm
Stead and Simpson each introduced a nephew to the business in 1863: Richard Fawcett (1828 – 1889) was enlisted as a salesman, and Henry Simpson Gee (1842 – 1924) became the factories manager.
It was around this time that the business began to enter into mass production.
Gee was responsible for the construction of new factories, and pioneered the introduction of steam-powered machinery in shoe and boot manufacture. Gee was gifted with a clear vision and an highly practical nature.
The growth of the business saw a new factory erected at New Street, Daventry in 1866.
The first retail shops were opened in the early 1870s. The earliest branches were at Carlisle, Whitehaven, South Shields and Sunderland.
The largest footwear manufacturer in the world
Stead & Simpson was the largest footwear manufacturer in the world by 1875. The business employed 1,216 workers in Leicester, 505 at Leeds, 500 at Daventry, 100 at Northampton and 80 at Oakham. 25,000 to 30,000 pairs of shoes and boots could be produced each week, including 5,600 pairs in Leeds.
The business became known as Stead, Simpson & Nephews from 1878.
Business headquarters had been relocated to Leicester by 1884, with a head office on Belgrave Gate. Joseph Griffin Ward (1843 – 1915) and John Lipson Ward (1847 – 1926) entered the business as partners.
There were retail shops in fifty towns across Britain by 1884. Over 3,000 workers produced over 30,000 pairs of boots and shoes each week.
The Belgrave Gate factory was destroyed by fire in 1886, with damaged estimated at £36,000. 1,500 people were temporarily thrown out of employment.
Conversion of the business into a public company
Edward Simpson, the senior partner, retired in 1887. Following the death of Richard Fawcett in 1889, the firm was converted into a public limited liability company, Stead & Simpson, with a capital of £300,000. The entire business, including goodwill, was valued at £268,000.
Henry Simpson Gee became company chairman. J G Ward and J L Ward were appointed as joint managing directors. Edward Wood (1839 – 1917), the chairman of Freeman Hardy & Willis, shoe retailers and manufacturers of Leicester, also joined the board.
There were about 100 retail shops by 1889. The Leeds tanning and currying business was discontinued from 1892, and the capital was utilised to extend the retail arm of the business.
Harry Percy Gee (1874 – 1962), the son of Henry Simpson Gee, joined the board of directors from 1898. He was subsequently appointed managing director.
470 employees were called up for active service during the First World War.
Henry Simpson Gee died in 1924 with an estate valued at £659,699. He was one of the best known businessmen in the Midlands. His will included a bequest of £20,000 to Leicester College, later to become the University of Leicester. He was succeeded as company chairman by Harry Percy Gee.
There were 250 retail shops by 1934, including 115 freehold leases, with a total value of around £500,000. There were 1,067 factory workers, 168 warehouse and clerical staff and 1,130 shop managers and assistants, a total staff of 2,365.
Harry Percy Gee retired as managing director in 1958, but remained as chairman until his death in 1962. His obituary in The Times heralded him as the “greatest benefactor the University [of Leicester] ever had”, and it was his generosity in the 1930s that enabled its survival. Gee left a net estate of £484,771.
Stead & Simpson operated 223 retail branches by 1963. Its sites were largely sited in rural market downs, with regional strengths in East Anglia, the East Midlands, the Welsh Marches and parts of the West Country.
Shoemaking and family ownership end
Stead & Simpson closed its shoe manufacturing operations in Daventry and Leicester with the loss of 400 jobs in 1973. The company would focus on its retail business, which could be managed more competitively if its products were acquired on the open market.
Members of the Gee family continued to hold voting control over Stead & Simpson. The Daily Mail described the chain as “downmarket”.
Stead & Simpson was acquired by Clayform Properties, a property developer, for £120 million in cash in 1989. Clayform was attracted to the value of Stead & Simpson’s 110 freehold high street properties, which it divested and leased back. 15 city centre locations were sold off. Stead & Simpson was starved of cash and investment, and became loss-making.
Stead & Simpson was acquired by its management, led by Peter Gee, in 1993. It was the third largest shoe shop chain in Britain, with 286 shops.
Shoe Express, with 77 shops, was acquired from the British Shoe Corporation in 1998.
Stead & Simpson was subject to a management buyout for £51.4 million in 2005. By this time the company had around 400 stores.
Stead & Simpson is acquired by Shoe Zone
Stead & Simpson lost market share as supermarkets and clothing retailers moved into the footwear market.
Stead & Simpson entered into administration in 2008, and the business was acquired by Shoe Zone of Leicester. 309 stores were retained, whilst 37 were closed. Anthony Smith, the chairman of Shoe Zone, later reflected that the takeover was “probably the worst acquisition we ever made. We ended up spending £10 million trying to run the Steads business, but it didn’t work”.
Stead & Simpson was placed into liquidation in 2012 and 90 unprofitable stores were closed. The Stead & Simpson brand had disappeared by the end of 2016, with stores either closed or converted to the Shoe Zone fascia.
Smith explained, “there’s a misconception about what happened with Steads. We paid off all suppliers and looked after all staff. We gave as many of them jobs as we could and those we couldn’t, we made them properly redundant … morally … I think we did the best thing we possible could under the circumstances.
Freeman Hardy & Willis was the largest footwear retailer in the world.
Edward Wood (1839 – 1917) was born in Derby, the son of a railway engine driver. As was typical for the era, his schooling ended at the age of ten.
Wood relocated to Leicester, where he initially worked as an errand boy. He was then apprenticed to a draper and outfitter. He worked as a hatter and hosier by 1861.
A Freeman Hardy & Willis outlet in Porthmadog, Wales in 1987
Wood began manufacturing shoes and boots from 1870, when he joined two relatives by marriage at premises on Marble Street. By the following year he employed seven men and one boy.
Wood succeeded due to a keen business sense and a high standard of integrity.
Freeman Hardy & Willis was incorporated in 1876. Wood appointed as company directors Arthur Hardy, an architect, William Freeman, his factory manager, and a Mr Willis, his salesman.
The first retail outlet was opened at Wandsworth, London, in 1877.
The wholesale business had been divested by 1879.
Freeman Hardy & Willis employed 55 men by 1881.
Freeman Hardy & Willis was the largest footwear retailer in the world by 1900. There were about 300 shops, mostly located in the Midlands and the North of England, by January 1903.
Freeman Hardy & Willis acquired Rabbits & Sons Ltd of Newington Butts, shoe retailers with a large presence in the South of England and London, in 1903.
Edward Wood was knighted in 1906 in recognition of his philanthropy and civic work. A dedicated Baptist, he served as Mayor of Leicester on four occasions.
Edward Wood (1839-1917) in 1898 by Walter William Ouless. Credit: Leicester Town Hall via Art UK
Foreign-made shoes accounted for just one percent of sales in 1910.
Freeman Hardy & Willis was the largest non-grocery retailer in Britain by 1913.
The Kettering Boot & Shoe Co Ltd, a manufacturer, was acquired in 1913.
Freeman Hardy & Willis was massively profitable during the First World War due to army contracts.
Wood died in 1917 with an estate valued at £172,649. His charitable bequests amounted to over £23,000.
Freeman Hardy & Willis operated 428 shops in 1921. There were 500 shops by 1923.
The Leicester business of Leavesley & North Ltd was acquired in 1925.
The Charterhouse Investment Trust, controlled by Sir Arthur Wheeler (1860 – 1943), acquired Freeman Hardy & Willis in the 1920s for over £3.5 million.
Freeman Hardy & Willis was sold to J Sears & Co of Northampton for over £4 million in 1928. Sears was a large shoe manufacturer and retailer, and the merged firm had 796 shops and a combined market value of £9 million.
The Leicester factory was destroyed during the Blitz in 1940.
Charles Clore (1904 – 1979) acquired control of J Sears & Co in 1953 in one of Britain’s first hostile takeovers. Clore immediately removed the existing chairman and managing director of Freeman Hardy & Willis. Later in 1953 he sold much of the freehold FHW estate, and leased the premises back.
From the 1960s until the 1990s Sears held around a quarter of all British shoe sales.
Sears divested its shoe factories in a management buyout in 1988.
By 1990 Freeman Hardy & Willis was aimed at the 15 to 30 market, and located in prime retail sites. However the chain was loss-making.
245 Freeman Hardy & Willis stores were sold to Facia, a private retailer, for £3 million in 1995. 60 stores were retained by Sears, and converted into other shoe retail formats. Facia converted the Freeman Hardy & Willis brand to other retail formats.
Meredith & Drew became the largest biscuit manufacturer in Europe.
William Meredith
William Meredith (1803 – 1868) was born in Bristol. He established a bakery at Shadwell in East London in 1830. William George Drew (1813 – 1867) was employed as his principal assistant. Following a quarrel between the two men, William Drew left the business to establish his own biscuit bakery in 1852.
William Meredith established a steam-powered factory on Commercial Road East, and focused on the public house trade for his biscuits, pound cakes and Banbury cakes. The business traded as Meredith & Son by 1856.
Drew & Sons
William Drew established a steam-powered factory on Shadwell High Street. Like Meredith, he focused on supplying the public house and hotel trade with biscuits. He employed 30 men by 1861.
William Drew died from a heart attack in 1867, and an obituary described him as “a man of remarkable energy and enterprise”, remembered for his charitable interests. Management of the business passed to his wife Barbara Drew, and his only son, Lear James Drew (1840 – 1917).
Drew & Sons produced over 100 different biscuit varieties by 1877.
Meredith & Drew
Frederick Meredith and Lear Drew merged their interests as Meredith & Drew, with a capital of £107,000, in 1891. The merged business was one of the largest biscuit manufacturers in Britain.
Meredith & Drew received its first Royal Warrant, from Queen Victoria, in 1894.
The Meredith & Drew factory at Shadwell was extended in 1896. Production was still concentrated on the manufacture of biscuits for the hospitality industry, particularly public houses and hotels.
Meredith & Drew was one of the best known businesses in the East End of London by 1897. The company had developed a reputation for fair treatment of its customers and workforce. Lear Drew was chairman with H D Rawlings (1836 – 1904) as vice chairman.
The Wright stuff
Meredith & Drew merged with Wright & Son of Shadwell through an exchange of shares in 1905. Thomas Reuben Wright (1868 – 1923) was appointed managing director of the company.
Lear Drew died with an estate valued at £30,986 in 1917. He was remembered as a genial man.
Thomas Reuben Wright died with an estate valued at £73,530 in 1923.
The Shadwell factory employed a workforce of around 1,000 people by 1925.
A factory was acquired at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire in 1927.
Meredith & Drew launched the Betta Biscuit, a low-cost product, from 1931. Its success allowed the business to grow to become the largest biscuit manufacturer in Europe by 1934.
Meredith & Drew had six factories across England by 1939. The London site, which was also the largest, was destroyed during the Blitz in 1940, and production was permanently relocated to plants at Oldham, Brighouse and High Wycombe. A factory was also acquired at Halifax. Company headquarters were relocated to Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Schoolchildren help to load Meredith & Drew biscuit tins onto a lorry, to be sent to liberated Europe (1945)
The merger of McVitie & Price and Macfarlane Lang to form United Biscuits in 1948 saw Meredith & Drew lose its position as the largest biscuit manufacturer in Britain.
29 different biscuits were produced in the post-war period, including shortcake, digestive, Marie, Nice, bourbon, custard cream and ginger nut.
Meredith & Drew employed 2,500 people and employed an authorised share capital of £1 million by 1951. Geoffrey Anthony Edward Drew Wright (born 1908), son of T R Wright, was managing director.
A new factory was established at Cinderford, Gloucestershire in 1951. It employed 300 people and focused on cream cracker production.
Four factories were closed in the 1950s and production was centralised at Halifax, Cinderford and Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
The Cinderford factory was closed with the loss of 346 jobs in 1962. Production was transferred to the Halifax and Ashby-de-la-Zouch plants, which were extended and modernised.
Own-label production for Marks & Spencer and a strong presence in the licensed trade saw Meredith & Drew control around five percent of the British potato crisp market by 1963.
Crisps contributed to an increasing share of turnover, and the Ashby-de-la-Zouch facility began to struggle to meet demand. A new crisp factory with a staff of 280 was acquired in Lanarkshire in 1963.
Meredith & Drew was strong in own-label production, savoury biscuits, the catering trade and potato crisps in 1967.
United Biscuits era
Meredith & Drew, with four percent of the British biscuit market, was acquired by United Biscuits for £2 million in 1967.
United Biscuits acquired Kenyon, Son & Craven, the manufacturer of KP nuts, for £3.5 million in 1968. Kenyon, Son & Craven was merged into Meredith & Drew.
Meredith & Drew crisps were rebranded under the stronger KP name. Meredith & Drew advertising was wound down, and rationalisation saw the Meredith & Drew biscuit brand retired in the early 1980s.
The Halifax site was closed with the loss of 990 jobs in 1989, and production was relocated to Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
The Ashby-de-la-Zouch biscuit factory was closed with the loss of 900 jobs in 2004.
United Biscuits continues to employ around 2,000 people in Ashby-de-la-Zouch through its distribution centre and KP Snacks factory.
The Meredith & Drew brand was reintroduced as a premium biscuit brand with a focus on the catering trade from 2018.
Swan Hunter was the largest shipbuilder in the world by the early twentieth century. The yard constructed 1,600 ships, including the RMS Mauretania (1906), HMS Ark Royal and numerous supertankers before its closure in 2006.
Swan Hunter is established
George Burton Hunter (1846 – 1937) partnered with the widow of Charles Sheridan Swan and became managing director of a new shipbuilding firm, C S Swan & Hunter, with a yard at Wallsend, Tyneside from 1879.
The seven acre site provided employment for up to 700 people. The business steadily expanded under boom conditions and able management from Hunter.
Sir George Burton Hunter (1846 – 1937) by Walter Stoneman in 1920. Image used with kind permission of the National Portrait Gallery.
An evangelical Anglican, Hunter was a strong temperance advocate. He was regarded as a fair and just employer.
The name of the firm was changed to Swan Hunter from 1880.
Swan Hunter becomes one of the largest shipbuilders in Britain
Swan Hunter became the leading Tyneside shipbuilder, in terms of tonnage constructed, for the first time in 1893.
Swan Hunter was established as a limited liability company, with Hunter as chairman, in 1895.
The company shipyards (not including the engine works) employed 2,500 men by July 1897. The works covered over 33 acres.
The Swan Hunter yard circa 1900
The neighbouring yard of Schlesinger, Davis & Co was acquired in 1897, and thereafter used to build floating docks.
Swan Hunter was the second largest shipbuilder in Britain in 1898, as measured by tonnage. The following year it was the seventh largest.
Swan Hunter differed from competitors in that it built ships inside large sheds, which allowed work to continue during poor weather conditions.
After winning a valuable contract with Cunard, Swan Hunter merged with Wigham Richardson & Co of Tyneside to create the largest shipbuilder in Britain, with a share capital of £1.5 million, in 1903. The company employed 4,600 people.
Swan Hunter broke the world record for tonnage produced (126,000) in 1906.
Construction of the RMS Mauretania in 1905. Source: Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums
The building of the RMS Mauretania, launched in 1906, brought the company worldwide repute. At 30,000 tons, she was the largest ship in the world until the completion of the RMS Olympic in 1911, and the fastest until the maiden voyage of the Bremen in 1929.
Swan Hunter had the largest aggregate production of any British shipbuilder between 1902 and 1909: 150 vessels of a total of 569,842 tons.
Swan Hunter had the largest output of any shipbuilding business in the world between 1910 and 1913. The company launched 21 ships with a combined tonnage of over 126,000 in 1912. The works on Tyneside covered 78 acres.
Barclay Curle & Co of Glasgow was acquired in 1913. The merged company had a combined annual tonnage of 230,000. The Clydeside works covered 60 acres.
During the First World War the yard built over 100 warships and 230 other vessels.
Swan Hunter employed 10,000 people across a 100 acre site by 1920.
In 1921 George Burton Hunter lamented that American shipyards were twice as efficient as British ones, which were hampered by restrictive trade union practices.
Swan Hunter had the largest output of any British shipbuilding company, with a tonnage of just under 120,000 in 1922.
Swan Hunter employed 10,000 men and boys during regular periods by 1928.
George Burton Hunter retired in 1928, and died in 1937.
Mergers and decline
Swan Hunter merged with fellow Tyneside shipbuilders Vickers, R & W Hawthorne Leslie & Co and John Readhead & Sons in 1968 following a recommendation by the Government’s Geddes Report. It was the largest shipbuilding group in Britain, with one third of shipbuilding and repairing capacity, and 20,000 employees.
Swan Hunter remained profitable, but along with much of the British shipbuilding industry, was nationalised in 1977 to become a subsidiary of British Shipbuilders.
Swan Hunter received two Royal Navy contracts to build aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal in the mid to late 1970s.
Swan Hunter regained its independence in a £5 million management buyout in 1986. 4,500 people were employed.
Swan Hunter entered into receivership in 1993. It was acquired by a Dutchman, Jaap Kroese (1939 – 2015), for £4 million in 1995.
Swan Hunter ceased to build ships on Tyneside in 2006. The company’s last cranes on the River Tyne were shipped to India in 2009.
Richardsons Westgarth was the largest builder of marine engines in the world.
Thomas Richardson & Sons
Thomas Richardson (1793 -1850), a timber merchant turned shipbuilder, established an iron foundry in the village of Castle Eden, Durham in 1838.
Richardson relocated to more spacious premises at Middleton, situated between West Hartlepool and Old Hartlepool, from 1846. The Hartlepool Iron Works was used to build colliery engines, and employed around 300 people.
Thomas Richardson was succeeded by his son, also called Thomas Richardson (1821 -1890), from 1850. The first marine engine was built in 1851.
Thomas Richardson & Sons, engineers and ironfounders, entered into receivership in 1875, after amassing debts of £280,000.
Thomas Richardson & Sons built its 636th pair of steamer engines in 1879.
Thomas Richardson & Sons produced twelve marine engines in 1886; the second largest total of any firm in Britain that year.
Donald Barns Morison (1860 -1925), a skilled engineer, became general manager of the business from 1888. The works could produce 30 to 40 sets of engines every year by 1890
Thomas Richardson died in 1890, and was succeeded as proprietor by his son, also called Thomas Richardson (1846 – 1906). By this time Richardsons was one of the leading marine engineering works in the world, and employed around 2,000 people.
Thomas Richardson was knighted in 1897. The Hartlepool Mail reported, “Sir Thomas is a Varsity man, but that has by no means damaged his capabilities as a man of business”.
The Hartlepool Engine Works covered over nine acres by 1900.
Richardson Westgarth & Co
T Richardson & Sons merged with Furness Westgarth & Co of Middlesbrough and W Allan & Co of Sunderland to form Richardson Westgarth & Co in 1900. The company employed thousands of people and had a share capital of £700,000.
Sir Christopher Furness was chairman, Sir Thomas Richardson was vice-chairman, and William John Richardson (1852 – 1918), W Allan and Stephen Furness were directors. Tom Westgarth (1852 – 1934) and D B Morison were joint-managing directors.
Christopher Furness (1852 – 1912) in 1902
Sir Christopher Furness was the largest single shareholder, and between them, the Furness and Richardson families had £450,000 to £500,000 invested in the company.
The merger allowed Richardson Westgarth to diversify its product range and combine its research and development talent. Some manufacturing was consolidated at Hartlepool. The affiliation with Christopher Furness also gave the company a ready market with his shipbuilding firms of Furness Withy and Irvine & Co.
Richardson Westgarth & Co built 55 engines with a combined horsepower of 106,300 in 1901; more than any other business in the world that year.
Tom Westgarth toured American and Continental iron, steel and engineering works in 1901. Upon his return, he warned that foreign competitors were gaining on British manufacturers. He called upon British workers to lose less time, take fewer holidays and to be more adaptable to changing conditions in order to ensure that indigenous industry remained competitive.
In 1911 Sir Christopher Furness criticised the irresponsibility of trade union leaders who identified foremost with political theories over practical business sense.
Richardson Westgarth employed 3,500 people in 1911, well within the top 100 largest British manufacturing employers.
Tom Westgarth retired from active control of the company in 1912 due to illness, but remained as a director.
Richardson Westgarth had never built an engine for the Admiralty, and at the beginning of the First World War, orders were slack. So the company wrote a letter to the government advertising its services, and war orders began from 1915. Between that time and the end of 1920, the firm engined 202 vessels, including 59 for the Admiralty, 57 for the Ministry of Shipping and 86 for the Mercantile Marine, with a total horsepower of 685,000. 51 ships were engined in 52 weeks in 1917 alone.
Richardson Westgarth built its first turbine engines during this period. The company also built 28 turbines for generating electric power onshore.
At the request of the Admiralty, Richardson Westgarth opened a shell manufacturing plant at Middlesbrough in 1915. Tom Westgarth supervised the project, and eventually, 4, 6 and 8 inch shells were being produced at the rate of 1,000 a week.
Investment in plant and machinery amounted to over £300,000 between 1915 and 1920.
D B Morison became chairman and managing director following the death of W J Richardson in 1918.
Richardson Westgarth produced the largest number of marine engines in Britain in 1920, with a total horsepower of 96,000. Worldwide, the company ranked sixth among marine engine builders, behind five American firms. However, the profitability of the marine engines business had declined substantially since the pre-War period.
Richardson Westgarth constructed its first diesel engine in 1923.
D B Morison retired in 1924, and was succeeded as chairman by Tom Westgarth.
Merger and recent history
A trade depression affected shipping particularly badly, and Richardson Westgarth merged with North-Eastern Marine Engineering Co of Wallsend and George Clark Ltd of Sunderland in 1938. The new venture took on the Richardsons Westgarth name, but North-Eastern Marine Engineering held the largest stake, and company headquarters were transferred to Wallsend.
Richardsons Westgarth and Weir Group of Glasgow merged their seawater desalination businesses as Weir Westgarth to create a world leader in the field in 1962. Weir Westgarth offices were relocated from West Hartlepool to Glasgow from 1964. Weir Group bought out the Richardsons Westgarth stake in the venture in 1967, although the Weir Westgarth name was retained.
Turbine and generator production came to an end in Hartlepool in 1967, with the closure of the South Works, and the loss of around 400 jobs.
Richardsons Westgarth was the largest manufacturer of slow-speed marine diesel engines in Britain in 1973.
North-Eastern Marine Engineering and George Clark, which were profitable, were subject to compulsory nationalisation by the British Government in 1977.
Throughout the early to mid-1980s, Richardsons Westgarth divested all of its remaining engineering operations, which had become loss-making, and focused on its steel stockholding business, which remained profitable.
The nationalised boilermaking operations in Hartlepool were closed with the loss of 250 jobs in 1982.
RW Transmissions of Hebburn, a loss-making subsidiary engaged in gear manufacturing, was divested in 1984. This marked the end of Richardsons Westgarth’s association with the North East of England.
Richardsons Westgarth was acquired by Klockner, a German metals trader, for £25 million in 2000 to create the second largest steel distributor in Britain.
Meanwhile Weir Westgarth was acquired by Veolia Water in 2005 and offices were relocated to East Kilbride.
Thomas Furness & Co was one of the largest grocers and provisions merchants in Britain.
John Furness (1808 – 1885) was a coal trimmer from Boroughbridge, Yorkshire. He married the daughter of a colliery owner, Averill Easter Wilson, and established a grocer’s shop in Hartlepool in 1850.
His son, Thomas Furness (1834 – 1905), served apprenticeships in Stockton and Manchester before opening his own grocery business on Church Street, Hartlepool in 1854. In 1861 the business employed two men and one boy. It was normal for grocers to work 90 hours per week.
A trade was soon established between Hartlepool and wholesalers in Denmark and Sweden. This venture was to prove immensely profitable.
In 1870 his brother Christopher (1852 – 1912) joined the firm as a sales representative. He was made partner in 1872.
Christopher Furness (1852 – 1912) in 1902
In 1877 the firm bought its own ships. By 1878 the firm had become the first in the North East of England to directly import produce from America, initially with Boston, and also later New York.
Christopher left the partnership in 1883, in order to develop the shipping side of the business.
John Furness died in 1885, and his Northern Daily Mail obituary hailed him as “one of the fathers of West Hartlepool”.
Thomas Furness was a Methodist and a temperance advocate. A staunch Liberal, in 1891 he became the first native of the borough to become Mayor of Hartlepool. He was not considered a particularly gifted man, but he was hard-working, conscientious and shrewd.
By 1891 the business was one of the largest provisions merchants in Britain.
In the mid 1890s the firm acquired the Shipowners’ Stores Supply Association of London.
In 1895 the firm was established as a limited company called Thomas Furness & Company’s Stores Ltd, with a capital of £200,000. Sir Christopher Furness was chairman of the directors, and Thomas and John Thomas Furness (1861 – 1932) were joint managing directors.
By this time the firm had offices at West Hartlepool and Newcastle upon Tyne, and shops at West Hartlepool, Darlington, Stockton, Saltburn, Thornaby and Richmond. In 1899 a branch was opened at Castleton, North Yorkshire.
In 1897 the firm established a small manufacturing arm called Northern Counties Manufacturing Co. Based at Mainsforth Terrace, it produced jams, cakes and biscuits. Plant, machinery and edifice cost £15,000.
Thomas Furness & Co sales in 1902 were a “disappointing” £477,116.
In 1903 James Newton Reid (1876 – 1923) of Liverpool joined the firm, which from 1909 began trading as Furness Brothers & Reid.
Thomas Furness died in 1905 and his estate was valued at £26,478.
Northern Counties Manufacturing Co was liquidated in 1908. The Castleton branch closed in 1909.
J T Furness’s only son, Guy Haswell Furness (1887 – 1952) was placed in charge of the business.
In 1924 Furness Brothers & Reid was entered into voluntary liquidation.
William Gray & Co was the largest shipbuilder in the world. The founder, Sir William Gray, was largely responsible for the growth of the town of Hartlepool.
Denton & Gray is established
William Gray (1823 – 1898) was born in Blyth, Northumberland. He established himself as a draper in the growing port town of Hartlepool, in the North East of England, from 1843.
Gray made a success of the drapery business, and reinvested his profits into sailing ships built by John Punshon Denton (1800 -1871), a well-established Hartlepool shipbuilder. Gray had become the largest owner of wooden ship tonnage in Hartlepool by 1863.
Sir William Gray (1823 – 1898)
Gray decided to enter into shipbuilding for himself, and entered into partnership with Denton to form Denton & Gray in 1862. Wooden vessels were becoming increasingly obsolete, and Denton & Gray launched their first iron ship in 1864.
Pile Spence & Co had pioneered iron steamship construction in Hartlepool in 1855. The failure of the Overend Gurney bank saw the shipbuilder enter into administration, and Denton & Gray acquired its three shipyards in 1869.
William Gray & Co becomes the largest shipbuilder in the world
John Denton died in 1871 and Gray took full control of the business to form William Gray & Co. By this time the firm was established as the largest shipbuilder in West Hartlepool, with an annual production of 16,490 tons.
William Gray & Co became the largest shipbuilder in the world, as measured by tonnage, for the first time in 1879. The ships were largely mid-sized cargo steamers.
The yard had produced 157 iron vessels with an aggregate value of £3.1 million by 1880. William Gray & Co was indisputably the largest industrial business in Hartlepool, and employed 1,400 workmen.
Gray established the Central Marine Engineering Works to manufacture steam engines from 1884. The chairman was G H Baines and the managing director was Thomas Mudd (1852 – 1898), one of the most talented engineers in the country.
William Gray & Co launched its first steel ship in 1884. All ships were built from steel from 1886.
Gray was a man known for his energy, perseverance and integrity. A large factor in his success was his willingness to extend credit to ship owners, or to take stakes in the ships themselves.
A warm and amiable man, Gray was a staunch Presbyterian. He donated thousands of pounds to the non-conformist chapels of Hartlepool in 1881. He was appointed the first Mayor of West Hartlepool in 1887.
William Gray & Co becomes a limited company
William Gray & Co became a limited company with a capital of £350,000 from 1888.
Weekly pay for employees amounted to over £8,000 in 1889.
William Gray & Co was quick to respond to an increasing demand for oil tankers. The yard built Bakuin (1886), the first oil tanker for a British owner. The Murex (1892) was the first of a number of oil tankers built for Shell, and became the first oil tanker to navigate the Suez Canal.
William Gray & Co had launched around 350 vessels, almost all steamships, by 1890. William Gray was also one of the largest shipowners in the United Kingdom. William Gray & Co employed 4,000 to 4,500 men and boys; a third of the population of Hartlepool. It was reported in an American newspaper that William Gray “almost owned the town”.
William Gray received a knighthood in 1890. He was appointed president of the Chamber of Shipping for the United Kingdom in 1891. Gray became High Sheriff of Durham in 1892.
For most of his life a Liberal, Gray stood as the Unionist parliamentary candidate for Hartlepool in 1891. He lost to fellow Hartlepool industrialist Christopher Furness (1852 – 1912), and was said to have been “beside himself with rage and disappointment” that his own employees helped to elect a rival. Gray was a good employer, but the electorate preferred the rival Liberal policies. It was alleged that Furness had promised his employees to only hire union labour if he was elected.
A statue of William Gray, paid for by public subscription, was erected in Hartlepool in 1898. Gray died later that year with an estate valued at over £1.5 million.
William Cresswell Gray takes over the business
William Gray was succeeded in business by his only surviving son, William Cresswell Gray (1867 – 1924).
William C Gray spent £9,000 to clear the debts of all the churches and chapels of Hartlepool in 1899.
William Gray & Co employed over 2,000 men in 1897. The company was the largest shipbuilder in the world in 1898, as measured by tonnage, and the second largest the following year. In 1900 it again won the title of the largest shipbuilder in the world. The business employed 2,000 to 3,000 workers by 1901.
Gray & Co launched the sixth largest aggregate tonnage of shipping in Britain between 1901 and 1909.
Gray & Co was the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world in 1915.
William Gray visited the Harland & Wolff yard in Belfast and was impressed by the amount of orders received for ship-repair work. He established a ship-repairing yard at Graythorp, Hartlepool, in 1916.
Following the First World War there was a rise in demand for new ships. To meet demand, a new shipyard was established at Pallion on the River Wear.
Despite a failed attempt by Christopher Furness, it was William Gray & Co that successfully introduced the first large-scale profit-sharing scheme for shipbuilding industry workers from 1919. Every employee received a 20 percent share of net profits.
William Gray & Co gifted a park and a worker’s institute to the people of Hartlepool at a cost of £35,000 in 1920. The company also established a convalescent home at the cost of £10,000.
The profit-sharing scheme saw William Gray & Co distribute £31,784 to 4,262 employees in 1921.
Sir William Gray and the demise of the business
Sir William Cresswell Gray died in 1924 and left a net estate valued at £279,069. He was succeeded by his son, Sir William Gray (1895 – 1978), as company chairman.
17 vessels with a total tonnage of 107,393 were launched in 1928.
William Gray & Co launched its thousandth ship in 1929. By this time the business had built 774 marine engines, and 2,196 boilers. 3,500 men were employed.
The Wearside yard was closed in 1930, and sold to National Shipbuilders Security in 1936.
William Gray & Co was the second largest British shipbuilder in 1932.
Frederick Cresswell Pyman (1889 – 1966) had been appointed managing director of William Gray & Co by 1939.
William Gray & Co had the second largest output of any shipbuilder in the North East of England during the Second World War, constructing 90 vessels. At its peak, the company employed 3,545 men in the shipyard and 1,400 in the engine works.
William Gray & Co had fallen to eleventh place in the region by 1950. The company received no orders in 1952 or 1953.
F C Pyman suggested that the post-war shipbuilding industry lacked sufficient managers and foremen. Many experienced men had been lost to the two World Wars, and the trade depression between the conflicts had seen an underinvestment in training. The industry was also hampered by the fact that trade unions had secured large increases in pay for their workers, but that this was not accompanied by a rise in productivity.
In order to meet capacity for oil tankers, £2 million was invested at the Graythorp site to make it the main shipbuilding centre from the mid-1950s.
Pyman stepped down as managing director in 1955, and was replaced by Stephen Furness and William Talbot Gray as joint-managing directors.
300 men were laid off in 1959.
William Gray & Co launched its last ship in 1961, after which the company was solely engaged in repair work. Amid a trade recession in the early 1960s the company was forced to take on conversion work at a loss in order to provide employment for its workers. 450 men were made redundant in 1962, leaving a workforce of just under 1,000. The firm entered into voluntary liquidation in 1963.
Company director Nicholas Anthony Gray (born 1934) explained:
The main reason for the company disbanding was that it was situated in an enclosed docks system with a limited entrance which restricted the company to building ships of no more than 16,000 tons deadweight and in these days it is really necessary to be able to build much larger ships than this if you are in the market of ocean-going vessels. The final decision to close was accelerated by the UK shipbuilding slump.
In one hundred years the yard had built around 1,400 ships.
The ship-repairing business at Graythorp was sold to Smith’s Dock Company in 1963.
The Graythorp site was acquired by Laing Offshore in 1969, and used to construct North Sea oil rigs. The site became the largest dry dock in the world. It is now operated by Able UK.
