Bass was one of the largest hospitality companies in mid-1990s Britain. The company had successfully introduced popular chain pubs such as All Bar One and O’Neills earlier in the decade.
Dave & Buster’s was a burger bar/video game arcade hybrid. Bass opened its first D&B in Solihull in the West Midlands in 1997. A second outlet was opened in Bristol in 1998 at a cost of £12 million. The outlets were large (40,000 to 60,000 square feet) and located in out of town locations.
A third outlet was scheduled to open in Thurrock, Essex, but never did. Bass had also explored sites in Croydon and Leeds.
Bass did not invent the D&B concept, and merely held the UK franchise. Bass withdrew from its franchise agreement in 2000 and closed the two outlets. The chain still exists in its native America.
John Crossley & Sons of Halifax was the largest carpet manufacturer in the world throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The business eventually declined as cheaper imports arrived from overseas, and the factory was closed in 1982.
Establishment and growth
John Crossley (1772 – 1837) was a hand weaver of carpets in Halifax, Yorkshire. He was promoted to mill manager. Crossley went on to lease a modest-sized mill at Dean Clough, eventually buying the property outright.
John Crossley died in 1837, and his three sons, John Crossley, Joseph Crossley and Francis Crossley took over management of the business. John Crossley & Sons had 300 employees and the fourth largest mill in Britain.
John Crossley was the general manager, Joseph was in charge of the machinery and Francis was the commercial mind.
Francis Crossley was responsible for the rapid expansion of the business throughout the mid-nineteenth century. He pioneered the development of steam-powered carpet manufacturing, which afforded the business an enormous cost advantage. Licensing the use of their patents to other carpet manufacturers brought in substantial revenues from royalties.
Francis Crossley (1817 – 1872), c. 1862. Image used with kind permission from the National Portrait Gallery.
John Crossley & Sons operated the largest carpet factory in England by 1848. By this time the business held a Royal Warrant to supply Queen Victoria. Carpets were retailed in Halifax and also supplied to London and Liverpool, with a substantial export market in the United States.
Many of the Crossley family values were inspired by their Congregationalist faith. Unusually for the time, Francis Crossley operated a policy of paying women equal wages to men for doing the same job.
Largest carpet manufacturer in the world
John Crossley & Sons was the largest carpet manufacturer in the world by 1862.
The business was transferred to a joint-stock company from 1864, with the primary aim of allowing its 3,500 employees to become shareholders. 20 percent of the company was sold to the workforce at preferential rates. John Crossley & Sons was perhaps the first large industrial business to provide a profit-sharing scheme for its staff.
John Crossley & Sons was the largest publicly-quoted industrial company in Britain by 1868, with an ordinary share capitalization of £2.2 million (about £220 million in 2014). 5,000 people were employed.
The company boasted annual carpet sales of £1.1 million by 1872, including exports to the United States valued at nearly £500,000. The buildings at Dean Clough Mill covered 20 acres, where concentration of production at a single site lowered costs.
John Crossley & Sons was one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world by 1877.
John Crossley & Sons employed 3,770 people in 1903.
John Crossley & Sons employed about 5,000 people at the largest carpet works in the world in 1923.
During the Second World War the company was largely engaged in cotton spinning (identified by the government as an essential industry) from its mill in Rochdale as well as the carpet export trade.
Post-war developments
Around half of production was exported in the post-war period, with Australia and New Zealand representing the largest markets.
John Crossley & Sons merged with Carpet Trades, one of the largest carpet manufacturers in Kidderminster, in 1953. The two companies continued to be managed separately.
The former Meredith & Drew factory at Brighouse near Halifax was acquired in order to produce the new, lower-cost, tufted-style carpets. The carpets were sold under the Kosset brand, using American marketing techniques.
John Crossley & Sons was the largest carpet manufacturer in Europe in 1968.
John Crossley & Sons-Carpet Trades merged with the Carpet Manufacturing Company of Kidderminster to form Carpets International in 1969. The company was the largest carpet manufacturer in the world, with 29 percent of United Kingdom sales. Company headquarters were transferred to Kidderminster. Kosset and Crossley were the leading brands.
Sales of imported carpets grew to take the majority of the market between 1970 and 1980. Between December 1979 and 1982 the workforce was reduced from 6,071 to 3,600.
Carpets International suffered heavy profit losses between 1980 and 1982. The Dean Clough Mills had been rendered uneconomical, and the site was closed in 1982. The company blamed the impact of the economic recession and competition from Belgian, Danish and American imports. 800 staff were relocated to other sites, although 400 jobs were lost.
Carpets International entered into administration with the loss of 1,200 jobs in 2003. The company blamed increasing imports and a growing preference for wooden laminate-style flooring.
OK was the highest-selling brown sauce in London as late as the 1970s. It was withdrawn from the British market in the 1990s, but Unilever continued to produce it for export to Asia.
George Mason & Co is established
Henderson Brand (1805 – 1893) A1 sauce, a popular brown sauce, from 1862. He employed two nephews, George and John Mason.
The Mason brothers entered into business for themselves, as competitors to Brand, from 1879. They established a small factory at 417-419 King’s Road, Chelsea. Their first products, OK Sauce and beef and chicken extracts, were direct imitations of Brand & Co products. They also supplied “invalid foods” for local hospitals.
OK Sauce contained raisins, cane sugar, mangoes, ginger, bell peppers, mace, nutmeg, cloves, British herbs, cinnamon, shallots, malt vinegar, garlic, lemons, oranges and tomato purée. No cereal-based thickening agent, artificial colouring or added chemical preservatives were used. Salt and vinegar acted as natural preservatives.
John Mason left the venture shortly afterwards, to leave George Mason as sole proprietor. George Mason took on investors to form a private limited company called George Mason & Co in 1884.
The business began to struggle, and George Mason was forced to resign his directorship in 1891.
Percy Cooper and the growth of OK Sauce
Percy Cooper (1863 – 1931) was an engaging man, who worked as an amatuer actor and magician during his spare time. He became a salesman for George Mason & Co from 1891. He was appointed general manager the following year.
Cooper was promoted to Manager and Secretary from 1895. He saw great potential in the sauce market, and decided to focus production and marketing efforts on OK Sauce. He relocated production to larger premises at St George’s Hall in Walham Green, Fulham, from 1896. Cooper named the new site ‘the Chelsea Works”.
OK Sauce won the only gold medal for sauce at the Festival of Empire exhibition in 1911. George Mason & Co were purveyors by appointment to the House of Lords, and also supplied the House of Commons.
An additional factory was opened at Southfields, Wandsworth, in order to cope with increasing demand for OK Sauce, from 1920.
Ownership of George Mason & Co was divided fairly evenly between the Cooper and Ripley families from 1920.
Rex Cooper expands OK Sauce nationwide
Rex Cooper, son of Percy Cooper, was appointed as general manager from 1925.
Both factories were closed in 1928 and production was centralised at a single larger site at Southfields, which was also named the Chelsea Works. 43,200 bottles of OK Sauce were produced daily. Rationalised production at an efficient site allowed the company to lower prices for the consumer.
The former factory in Southfields, Wandsworth (2012)
Percy Cooper died suddenly in 1931, and Rex Cooper assumed his position as managing director.
Distribution of OK Sauce was mainly limited to Southern England and South Wales. A dedicated northern sales team was established to boost sales nationwide from 1936.
Wartime restrictions meant that by 1945 only OK Sauce, mustard, Worcester sauce and fruit chutney were produced.
OK Sauce sales surpassed £1 million for the first time (about £21 million in 2015) in 1960.
Acquisition by Reckitt & Colman
Reckitt & Colman, manufacturers of Colman’s mustard, were keen to enter the brown sauce market, and acquired George Mason for £826,575 (equivalent to £14.5 million in 2013) in cash in 1964. Rex Cooper joined the Colman’s board of directors.
Rex’s son Brian Cooper was appointed managing director in 1965. Rex Cooper died the following year, leaving £77,514 (£1.3 million in 2013).
The Southfields factory was closed with the loss of 150 jobs in 1969. Colman’s explained that Mason’s had “long since outgrown” the London factory, and production was relocated to Norwich.
By 1969 caramel and concentrates were added to OK sauce for colouring, and gum tragacanth and manucol ester were added for appearance.
The brown sauce market in Britain was highly regional as late as 1970, and OK claimed the largest share of the London market.
The British grocery sector was increasingly in the hands of large supermarket chains by the mid-1970s. Supermarkets focused on a limited product range, and also introduced own-label products in categories such as brown sauce. This placed pressure on OK Sauce, which was a less-prominent brand than HP Sauce, its major rival.
OK Sauce is withdrawn from the UK, but continues to be produced for Asian markets
Colman’s was acquired by Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant, in 1995.
OK Sauce appears to have disappeared from British shelves in the mid to late 1990s. Many of its customers switched to HP Fruity as the closest available alternative.
OK Sauce continues to be manufactured by Unilever for export to Asia.
OK Sauce
OK is a dark brown sauce. It is fruity, peppery, tangy, sweet and sour. Its fruit content is listed as 39%. It has quite an Oriental profile, and perhaps contains star anise. It perhaps shares similarities with a puréed fruit chutney.
The recipe appears to have changed over time. Mangoes are no longer contained in the sauce, and dates are now present. The label now claims that there are no artificial colours, flavourings or sweeteners added. Modified maize starch is added as a thickener.
The sauce can be used in much the same way as HP, and I can highly recommend it as an accompaniment to bacon or sausage. Chinese restaurants use it with shredded beef, shredded chicken and spare ribs.
Little Chef dominated roadside catering in Britain, and inspired a rival, Happy Eater, which it was later allowed to acquire.
Happy Eater was established by Michael Pickard in 1973. Michael Pickard had managed Little Chef, but had been dismissed, supposedly following a personality clash with its owner, Sir Charles Forte.
Pickard established a rival to Little Chef in May 1973 with a 60-seat Happy Eater outlet at Ripley, Surrey. Two further sites were opened that year, one near Ashford in Kent and one near Crawley in West Sussex.
The business drew inspiration from the Howard Johnson’s chain of restaurants in the United States. Happy Eater was the first roadside restaurant chain in Britain to principally target the family market. Happy Eater outlets had children’s menus and baby-feeding facilities as well as superior play area facilities compared to Little Chef, both inside and outside.
By 1980 there were 17 restaurants, and the company needed expansion capital. Courage, the national brewer, acquired a 52.7 percent stake.
The company had a turnover of £8 million in 1983-4, which rose to £11.8 million for 1984-5. By 1986 there were 61 outlets and the company employed 1,430 people.
The majority of outlets were situated in South East England, East Anglia, the Midlands and along the A1. In 1986 only one outlet was franchised, the rest being owned or leased. Outlets could seat between 70 and 110 diners.
In 1987 the chain was acquired by Trust House Forte, the owners of Little Chef, for £14.2 million. In 1988 the chain peaked with 90 outlets.
The Prime Minister, John Major, notably dined at a Happy Eater in 1991. For this he was mocked by some in the media as an uncivilised buffoon, but others praised his demonstration of the common touch.
In 1995 the chain was described in The Observer, The Guardian and Scotland on Sunday as “downmarket”.
The first six months of 1995 saw 14 outlets rebranded as Little Chef, leaving fewer than 50 Happy Eaters remaining.
In 1996 Little Chef was acquired by Granada, a conglomerate which operated motorway service stations. In October 1996 it was announced that all remaining Happy Eaters would either be converted or closed down. The brand ceased to trade in 1998.
Huntley & Palmers became the largest manufacturer of biscuits in the world.
George Palmer (1818 – 1897) was born to a Quaker farming family in Somerset. His mother was a cousin of Cyrus and James Clark, founders of the well-known shoe manufacturing business.
George Palmer (1818 – 1897)
George Palmer was apprenticed to an uncle as a miller and confectioner in 1832. In 1841 he entered into a partnership with a cousin by marriage, Thomas Huntley (1802 – 1857), who owned a firm in Reading, founded in 1822, which sold high quality biscuits across much of southern England.
Huntley and Palmer took over a disused silk factory on the bank of the Kennet & Avon canal in 1843. Palmer introduced steam power and mechanisation to the business. With engineer William Exall, Palmer introduced the first continuously-running biscuit machinery in the world in 1846.
Huntley & Palmer employed 500 people by 1850. Sixteen tons of biscuits were produced every week by 1851, with distribution across England.
When Huntley died in 1857, annual turnover of the firm was £125,000 (around £12.5 million in 2014). George Palmer bought out Huntley’s son and took into partnership his brothers, Samuel and William Isaac Palmer, the former managing the London office and the latter running the factory.
Huntley & Palmers was producing thousands of tons of biscuits every year by 1865. Ship’s biscuit was a major product. The firm responded quickly to consumer demand: following the success of the Pearl biscuit introduced by rival Peek Frean of Bermondsey, Huntley & Palmers introduced their own version within a matter of months.
800 men and boys were employed by 1865. By this time Huntley & Palmers had introduced a compulsory employee sick fund, and provided a reading room at a small cost to subscribing workers.
Huntley & Palmers employed nearly 1,000 people by 1867.
The second generation of the Palmer family took over the management of the business from 1867-8. By now the business was easily the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world. Around 25 percent of production was exported. Sales grew as afternoon tea became a middle class tradition.
Nearly 2,500 people were employed by 1872.
The Thin Arrowroot biscuit was introduced from 1884. The Breakfast biscuit, an unsweetened alternative to toast, was introduced from around 1892.
Nearly 400 varieties of biscuit and cake were produced by 1892. Leading product lines included the Ginger Nut, Milk, Empire and Colonial biscuits. During peak periods, close to 5,000 men and women were employed.
Joseph Hatton (1837 – 1907), the editor of the Sunday Times, suggested that George Palmer could be described as the “father of modern Reading”. The huge population growth of the town was largely due to the biscuit industry.
By the 1890s the Huntley & Palmer name was one of the best known brands in the world.
George Palmer died in 1897. That year the firm produced 23,000 tons of biscuits and recorded a turnover of over £1.25 million (c. £142 million in 2014).
Callard & Bowser was the leading manufacturer of butterscotch in the world. The founding-family sold the business in the 1930s and its successive owners included Guinness, United Biscuits and Kraft.
Callard & Bowser developed a large market for Altoids mints in the United States from the 1980s, and eventually discontinued all other lines in order to focus on their leading product.
The growth of a family business
Daniel James Callard (1824 – 1903) was born in London to a prosperous non-conformist family. Members of the Callard family had been bakers in the metropolis since the seventeenth century, and Daniel Callard became a master baker himself.
Daniel Callard had entered into partnership with John Carrick Bowser (1828 – 1912), his brother-in-law, by 1855. The two men established a wholesale grocery business at St John’s Wood. The business initially manufactured infant formula, but began to concentrate on confectionery production from 1861.
Daniel Callard bought out John Bowser’s stake in the business in 1872, but continued to trade under the established name of “Callard & Bowser”. The firm grew through strong branding and a dedication to product quality and purity, at a time when standards were often inconsistent.
Daniel Callard received the 80th trademark issued in Britain in 1876. By this time butterscotch, Turkish delight and boiled sweets were established as the core products.
Callard & Bowser logo (1896)
Daniel Callard employed 41 people by 1881. He had passed control of the business to his son, James Percival Callard (1859 – 1940), by 1891.
Growing sales saw the business relocated to Duke’s Road, Euston by 1894.
Daniel Callard died with an estate valued at £99,570 (around £11 million in 2015) in 1903.
Callard & Bowser butterscotch consisted of 11.7 percent butter fat and 79.3 percent sugar, according to an analysis conducted for the British Medical Journal in 1907.
James Callard sold the business to his son-in-law after the First World War. Callard & Bowser was the largest producer of butterscotch in the British Empire.
Major Allnatt acquires Callard & Bowser
Callard & Bowser was sold to Major Alfred Ernest Allnatt (1889 – 1969) in 1933. Allnatt was best-known as a publicity-shy and eccentric property developer.
Allnatt relocated production to land he owned at Western Avenue, Park Royal, adjacent to the London branch of the Guinness brewery. Cream Line toffee was introduced from 1937, and was to prove one of the more successful products.
Callard & Bowser acquired William Nuttall of Doncaster, best known for the Mintoes boiled sweet, in 1948. The Nuttall factory was large and modern and the business had a strong export trade. The acquisition cemented Callard & Bowser’s position as one of the largest toffee manufacturers in Britain.
Callard & Bowser is sold to Guinness
Callard & Bowser was acquired by Guinness in 1951. Major Allnatt was retained as chairman. Guinness wanted to diversify from its core brewing operation, and had decided to establish a confectionery subsidiary. The company was able to acquire Callard & Bowser at a depressed price as sweet rationing remained in force. The sweet ration was lifted in 1953, and this was to prove a major boon for the confectionery industry.
Profits from confectionery, amounting to £850,000 between 1951 and 1956, were reinvested into the business. Rileys of Halifax, best known for Toffee Rolls, and Lavells, a confectionery store chain, were acquired. Guinness invested heavily to install new factory equipment. A factory on Silverdale Road at Hayes, Middlesex was acquired in 1956.
Rolls Confectionery of Greenford, Middlesex was purchased from J Lyons & Co in 1961.
Callard & Bowser was not an extensive advertiser, and instead concentrated on developing strong relationships with wholesalers and retailers.
Callard & Bowser toffees were a favourite confectionery of United States President John F Kennedy (1917 – 1963).
Callard & Bowser was the largest manufacturer of nougat in Britain by 1974.
The Park Royal factory was divested in 1974. Guinness indicated that rationalisation was essential in order to control costs in a highly competitive industry. Production was relocated to the Hayes factory, where there was space for expansion. All 250 staff at Park Royal were given the opportunity to transfer to the Hayes site.
Callard & Bowser had become unprofitable by the early 1980s. The Nuttall factory in Doncaster was closed down with the loss of 125 jobs in 1981. Production was transferred to Halifax.
Callard & Bowser had a turnover of £17 million in 1981. The business employed 1,186 people.
Takeover by Beatrice Foods
Guinness sold Callard & Bowser to Beatrice Foods of Chicago for £4 million in 1982 in order to focus on its core brewing operation.
Beatrice Foods merged Smith Kendon into Callard & Bowser to form the eighth-largest confectionery manufacturer in Britain. Smith Kendon produced Altoids Curiously Strong Mints at Bridgend in Wales.
Callard & Bowser operated autonomously from its parent company.
The business continued to operate at a loss due to a declining sugar confectionery market. 135 jobs at Hayes and Halifax were lost in 1982.
High business rates and an inefficient ageing factory saw the Hayes site closed down with the loss of 500 jobs in 1983. Production was transferred to Bridgend, which received heavy investment.
Callard & Bowser was growing rapidly by the mid-1980s. It was the largest manufacturer of butterscotch in the world and claimed 25 percent of the British toffee market. Around half of all production was exported to 65 different countries.
Sale to United Biscuits
Beatrice Foods sold Callard & Bowser to United Biscuits in 1988, in an attempt to reduce debt. United Biscuits paid £21.5 million in cash, a price that represented 83 times annual earnings at Callard & Bowser. The Halifax and Bridgend sites employed 240 white collar staff and just over 400 hourly-paid employees. The Times reported that United Biscuits had acquired “one of the best-known and most traditional names in confectionery, famed for its butterscotch”.
United Biscuits integrated Callard & Bowser with their own Terry’s confectionery subsidiary, best known for the Chocolate Orange, to form the Terry’s Group. The merged business held three percent of the British sugar confectionery market.
United Biscuits did not advertise Callard & Bowser products, but instead investing in packaging design and product formulation. The strategy worked: a 29 percent share of the toffee market had grown to 34 percent by 1992.
Confectionery production was discontinued at Halifax in 1992.
Takeover by Kraft
United Biscuits sold the Terry’s Group to Kraft of Chicago in 1993.
Altoids had enjoyed considerable success in the United States from the late 1980s. Altoids were the highest selling peppermint in the United States by 1997, with annual sales of 40 million tins.
Riley’s Toffee Rolls were discontinued in the mid-1990s in order to accommodate increased Altoids production. Cream Line toffees were discontinued in 2001, and the remaining lines, with the exception of Altoids, were discontinued in 2004.
Sale to Wrigley
Kraft sold Callard & Bowser, along with its Lifesavers mint brand, to Wrigley of Chicago for $1.48 billion in 2004. The Bridgend factory exported 8,000 tonnes of Altoids to America every year.
Wrigley closed down the Bridgend plant with the loss of 173 jobs in 2005. 90 percent of production was exported to America, so it made economic sense to transfer manufacturing to the United States. The Callard & Bowser and Nuttall’s brands were discontinued, with the exception of Altoids.
Mackintosh was the largest manufacturer of toffee in the world. The company introduced iconic brands such as Quality Street, Rolo and Toffee Crisp.
Violet Mackintosh creates a new toffee
John Mackintosh (1868 – 1920) and his wife Violet (1866 – 1932) opened a pastry shop in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1890. The couple were lifelong members of the Methodist New Connexion denomination (United Methodist Church from 1907).
Business was to prove slow, so Violet Mackintosh invented a new product: a unique chewy toffee which blended the qualities of Yorkshire butterscotch and American caramel. Previously English toffee had referred to a hard boiled sweet.
The product was to prove a great success, and soon the product began to be distributed across Britain.
Mackintosh becomes the largest manufacturer of toffee in the world
John Mackintosh was the largest toffee manufacturer in the world by 1905. He sold an average of one hundred tons of toffee every week in England. He claimed to be the largest consumer of butter in the world.
Export sales proved promising, and Mackintosh established a factory in Germany, outside of Dusseldorf, from 1906.
A factory was opened at Brockville, Ontario in Canada in 1908. It had a manufacturing capacity of seven tons of toffee a day.
Over 8,000 tons of toffee were sold in Britain every year by 1910.
The German business was closed shortly before the First World War.
John Mackintosh Ltd employed some 1,000 people by 1914.
A factory had been established in Australia by 1914.
John Mackintosh died from a heart attack in 1920. He left an estate valued at over £150,000, and his company had assets of £350,000.
Control of the business passed to Harold Mackintosh (1891 – 1964), the eldest son of the founder.
Company shares were first offered to the public in 1921 in order to fund the duty on John Mackintosh’s estate.
Mackintosh could produce seven million pieces of toffee every day by 1921. The company employed 2,000 people in factories in Britain and overseas by 1932.
Acquisition of A J Caley and new product launches A J Caley, the Norwich chocolate manufacturer, was acquired from Unilever for £138,000 in 1933. The loss-making operation had a capital of £1 million and employed 1,000 people.
Mackintosh overhauled the business, repositioning it into the premium quality sector. Mackintosh combined its expertise in toffee with Caley’s expertise in chocolate. As a result, the Quality Street sweet tin was launched in 1936. This was quickly followed by the Rolo in 1937. The Rolo was designed to fit easily inside a pocket, and was an immediate success. A J Caley sales grew eightfold between 1933 and 1938.
Mackintosh supplied over 10,000 tons of confectionery to the British armed forces during the Second World War, principally toffee and butterscotch.
Quality Street had overtaken Mackintosh’s toffee to be regarded by the company as its premier product by the early 1950s. Rolo was perceived as an adequate rival to the foremost Cadbury and Rowntree lines.
Further product launches included Munchies (1957), Caramac (1959), Tooty Frooties and Toffee Crisp (both 1963) and Toffo (1964).
Mackintosh employed 5,000 people, including 2,000 at Norwich, by 1962. The company opened a new factory in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1964.
Mackintosh became one of the “Big Five” of British chocolate manufacturers, alongside Cadbury, Rowntree, Mars and Nestle.
Fox’s of Leicester, manufacturer of Glacier Mints, was acquired for £1 million in cash in 1969.
Mackintosh merges with Rowntree
Mackintosh underwent a friendly merger with Rowntree of York to form Rowntree Mackintosh in 1969. At the time, Mackintosh shares were still majority held by family interests. Rowntree dominated the merger, which was seen as a defensive move following a £49 million bid for Rowntree from General Food of America. The merged company held 25 percent of the British confectionery market.
Quality Street had the largest sale of any confectionery assortment in the world by 1972.
Rowntree was acquired by Nestle of Switzerland in 1988. The Norwich factory was closed in 1994.
Toffo was discontinued in Britain in 2012. It continues to be manufactured and sold in the Middle East.
The Halifax factory continues to manufacture Quality Street, as well as Easter eggs and After Eights.
Mackintosh toffee is still sold in Canada and Australasia. It is also available in Britain as a variety within the Quality Street assortment.
Fox’s Glacier Mints are the leading mint-flavoured boiled sweets in Britain.
Walter Fox establishes the business
Walter Richard Fox (1862 – 1951) was born into a Baptist Leicestershire farming family. He built up a wholesale grocery business on York Road in Leicester.
Fox was an inventor, and began to manufacture confectionery from 1895. Within two years he had expanded his range to include over 100 different product lines.
Eric Fox invents Glacier Mints
Walter Fox was joined in business by his son, Eric Smart Fox (1890 – 1963), from 1914. Eric Fox had spent four years in the United States in order to learn American business methods and advertising techniques.
Eric Fox was to become the driving force of the company. He persuaded his father to redirect the company focus from low-cost sweets towards premium-priced confectionery.
Eric Fox invented the first transparent peppermint by mistake during the First World War. Wartime obstacles prevented Fox from installing the necessary machinery to mass produce the product. Clear Mint Fingers were finally introduced from 1918, and were sold in large glass jars. Acting on his wife’s advice, Fox renamed the sweets Glacier Mints from 1919, and introduced the polar bear trademark. Glacier Mints became the leading product.
Eric Fox believed in the potential for Glacier Mints, and advertised extensively in newspapers. Glacier Mints soon became the leading product for the company.
Fox’s made the transition from a local business to a national concern. Expanding sales saw the business relocate to Oxford Street, Leicester from 1923, where production was increased eightfold. The export market began to be pursued from 1924.
Eric Fox would later relate that he had not set out to make a lot of money, but to serve the public with a quality product.
Walter Fox retired from the business in 1935.
A factory was established in Castlereagh, Belfast, from 1954. Around 200 people were employed.
Fox’s Glacier Fruits were introduced from 1956.
Eric Smart Fox died with an estate valued at £150,000 in 1963. He was succeeded as chairman by his son, Bruce Vaughan Fox (1918 – 2009).
The Castlereagh plant was closed with the loss of around 100 jobs in 1964.
The Fox family sell the business; subsequent owners
Fox’s relocated to purpose-built premises at Braunstone, Leicester, from 1967. It was the most modern automated confectionery plant in Europe. The business employed around 400 people.
Fox’s had taken on debt in order to build the new factory, and consequently lacked sufficient capital for expansion. The company was acquired by Mackintosh & Son of Halifax for £984,000 in cash (around £14 million in 2014) in 1969. It was reasoned that Mackintosh would be able to improve distribution of Fox’s products and increase exports. Mackintosh was acquired by Rowntree of York later that year.
The Leicester factory began to produce the fruit-flavoured variants of Rowntree’s Polo mint brand from the 1980s.
Rowntree was acquired by Nestle of Switzerland in 1988.
Declining sales meant that the future of the Leicester factory was in doubt by 2000. The business was saved when it was acquired by Northern Foods for £8.4 million in 2001. Nestle relocated production of the fruit-flavoured Polo mints to a factory in the Czech Republic. Northern Foods closed its Croydon confectionery factory, and relocated production of Paynes Poppets and Just Brazils brands to the Leicester site.
Fox’s was subject to a £9.4 million management buyout in 2003. Renamed as the Big Bear Group, the business acquired other brands such as Sugar Puffs cereal.
Big Bear was acquired by Raiso Group of Finland for £80 million in 2011. Raiso was best known for the Benecol health drink.
Fox’s employed around 150 people in 2014. Its leading brands were Glacier Mints, XXX strong mints, Payne’s Poppets and Just Brazils.
Big Bear Confectionery was sold to Valeo Foods in 2017.
The Leicester factory was closed in 2019 and production was transferred to York.
Watney’s Red Barrel had become the highest-selling keg bitter in the world by the mid-1960s. The beer’s relaunch as Watney’s Red in 1971 represented one of the most notorious failures in brand management in recent British history. What went wrong?
The birth of Watney’s Red Barrel
Watney, Combe & Reid was formed by the amalgamation of three London breweries in 1898. Production was concentrated at the Watney brewery at Mortlake, and the Reid and Combe sites were closed. Watney, Combe & Reid was the third largest brewer in the British Isles, behind only Guinness and Bass.
Watney, Combe & Reid was the second most highly valued public company in Britain in 1905, and members of the founding families grew hugely wealthy. Charles Combe (1837 – 1920) died with a net estate valued at £956,139, or over £374 million in 2023 prices. Claude Watney (1867 – 1920) left a net estate valued at £498,461 (approx. £195 million in 2023).
Watney, Combe & Reid introduced the Red Barrel as their in-house trademark from 1930.
A Watney’s Red Barrel beer font. Image used with permission.
Watney, Combe & Reid was the first British brewer to successfully introduce a draught “container beer” in 1931. Unlike cask conditioned beer would only remain fresh for days, container beer was filtered, pasteurised and stored under pressure with carbon dioxide, which allowed it to retain its condition for months. The beer could withstand tropical heat and a lengthy shipping period, which rendered it ideal for export. The product was soon available in outlets where cask beer could not be sold, such as Royal Navy ships, Cunard liners and Middle Eastern oil fields.
Watney’s Container Bitter was introduced to the domestic market from 1935. It was initially sold at the East Sheen Lawn Tennis Club, where its improved shelf life was to prove ideal for the intermittent trade of a sports club. Sales were expanded to other clubs and hotels.
Watney’s Red Barrel is rolled out
Simon Harvey Combe (1903 – 1965) was appointed chairman of Watney, Combe & Reid in 1950. He was a forceful figure who had shot his way out of German captivity during the Second World War and been awarded with the Military Cross.
Following the war a large proportion of the managers of free houses had neither the time nor the experience to correctly handle cask beer, and quality had suffered. Customers increasingly turned to bottled beer, which, although more expensive, offered more consistent quality, and accounted for one third of beer sales by 1953. Catering to this trend, Watney’s Red Barrel was introduced as a bottled pale ale from 1950.
Meanwhile Watney, Combe & Reid began to expand outside of its London heartland. Tamplin & Sons of Brighton, with 400 public houses in Sussex, was acquired in 1953. Henty & Constable of Chichester, with 253 licensed premises in Sussex and Hampshire, was acquired in 1954.
Flowers Breweries of Luton and Stratford upon Avon launched Flowers Keg in May 1955. It was the first container beer to be introduced to the mass market, and popularised “keg” as a generic term. Flowers initially distributed the beer to free trade outlets across London and the South East of England with insufficient sales to stock cask beer, such as golf clubs and private parties, or public houses with insufficient cellar space. Demand for Flowers Keg was to prove surprisingly high, and the product was soon distributed across the brewery’s tied estate and sold to rival brewers.
The success of Flowers Keg convinced Watney, Combe & Reid to introduce the keg version of Red Barrel to British public houses from 1956. It was brewed with Norfolk malt and Goldings hops, and was naturally matured for several weeks. Sales initially targeted free trade outlets, and cask beer continued to dominate the tied estate.
Watney, Combe & Reid acquired Mann, Crossman & Paulin of Whitechapel to form Watney Mann in 1958. The merger allowed the group to reclaim its position as one of the largest brewers in Britain, and strengthened Watney’s position in hitherto underrepresented markets such as Essex, Luton and Coventry. Production was concentrated at the Mortlake and Whitechapel breweries, which were modernised.
Watney’s Red Barrel was the most widely-distributed keg beer by the late 1950s, aided by the brewery’s large tied estate of 3,670 public houses and extensive free trade accounts.
Watney Mann fights the takeover threat
Charles Clore (1904 – 1979) had become a pioneer of the hostile takeover in Britain in the early 1950s. He acquired companies with undervalued property assets which he then sold and leased back or redeveloped. Clore 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.”
Clore’s attempt to acquire Watney Mann for £27 million in 1959 represented the largest takeover bid in British history. Clore planned to modernise the “smoky, smelly, barnlike premises” of Watney Mann by introducing comfortable seating, removing the distinction between saloon and public bars, and improving the food offering. Pubs in areas with high footfall, such as city centres, would be sold off and converted into shops.
The directors of Watney Mann, descendants of the founding families, were horrified. According to TIME magazine, Clore was “the first outsider ever to challenge the clubby, clannish old families who dominate British brewing through a tangle of interlocking directorates”. The Evening Standard commented on the threat, “it threw the whole brewery world into confusion. Here was an outsider trying to storm his way in. It must not be allowed to happen”. Simon Combe was convinced that Clore would “redevelop all the properties and close the breweries”, and that his workforce would lose their jobs. He derided the bid as, “preposterous … deplorable for the brewing industry and a disaster for Watney’s”.
The takeover attempt was to ultimately prove unsuccessful, but it became apparent that Watney Mann was not immune to the threat of market forces. The management team were galvanised. The company property portfolio was reassessed for the first time since 1929 and valued at £34 million. The Stag brewery site at Pimlico was sold off for £6 million. Watney sped up plans to modernise its tied estate of public houses, and Milner Gray (1899 – 1997) was hired to design a new corporate identity.
Watney’s Red Barrel grows and cask ale is phased out
Watney Mann continued to expand by acquisition in order to meet demand for additional brewing capacity, and to secure more outlets for Watney’s Red Barrel. 1960 saw the acquisition of Phipps, with 1,171 licensed premises within a 60-mile radius of Northampton, for £11 million, Ushers of Trowbridge with 900 licensed premises for £4 million and Wilson & Walker of Manchester, with around 1,124 public houses, for nearly £11.5 million. Watney Mann ended the year as the largest brewing group in Britain, with around 6,600 licensed premises.
Keg beer sales grew, initially at the expense of bottled beers. Customers, particularly the young, appreciated the consistent taste, and it commanded a premium price and superior profit margins. Watney’s Red Barrel was heavily advertised, and was the highest-selling keg bitter in Britain by 1961, with estimated annual sales of around 150,000 barrels, mostly concentrated in the South of England and London.
Watney’s Red Barrel became the first nationally-distributed draught beer in Britain. The success of keg saw the introduction of rival beers from the national brewers, including Whitbread Tankard, Worthington E, Younger’s Tartan Special, Double Diamond and Courage Tavern. Keg accounted for six percent of the total beer market by 1964.
Watney Mann held 34,000 free trade accounts by 1963. Cask beer had been phased out from the 2,000 tied houses in London and the South of England by the end of 1963, and the Manchester and West Country houses were earmarked to follow.
Watney’s Red Barrel was successfully introduced overseas. A higher strength version with an ABV of 5.2 percent was exported to northern France and Belgium from 1962. Nearly 5,000 barrels of Red Barrel were exported to Northern Europe in 1965. A modified version of Watney’s Red Barrel, reformulated to suit the American palate, was introduced in the United States from 1963 and was sold in 100 outlets by 1967. Licensed production of Red Barrel commenced at the Murphy’s brewery in Cork, Ireland, from 1966.
It was claimed that Watney’s Red Barrel was the highest-selling keg beer in the world by 1966. Peter Crossman (1908 – 1989), who had succeeded Simon Combe as chairman of Watney Mann, predicted that cask beer would be extinct by 1978. This view was echoed by A G Manners, the chairman of Bass, who commented, “people today want a beer which they know is standard and always in proper condition- which they cannot always get today in cask beer”.
Watney Mann continued to expand by acquisitions throughout the 1960s, in an effort to build a business which had truly national scope. The takeover targets included the Morgan Brewery of Norwich (1961); Bullard & Sons and Steward & Patteson of Norwich (1963), with 1,800 public houses for £16.5 million; and Drybrough of Edinburgh (1965), with 140 tied houses, for £2 million.
Peter Crossman became convinced that the British beer market was saturated, and decided to expand into continental Europe. The Delbruyers brewery of Chatelet was acquired in 1966 and the site was used to brew Watney’s Red Barrel. This was followed by the acquisition of Brasseries Vandenheuvel of Brussels with 1,740 outlets (1968) and Maes with 700 outlets (1969) to position Watney Mann as the second largest brewer in Belgium.
Watney Mann announced plans to centralise production at its breweries in Mortlake, Manchester, Norwich and Edinburgh in 1970. The Trowbridge, Whitechapel and Brighton breweries would be closed. Production of cask ales had largely ceased by this time, and local names would be phased out in favour of the Watney brand. A range of 80 beers in 1969 had been rationalised to 35 by 1971.
Watney’s Red Barrel is replaced by Watney’s Red
Watney’s Red Barrel volumes peaked in 1969. Sales then entered into decline and fell behind rivals Double Diamond and Whitbread Tankard. Double Diamond offered greater consistency than Red Barrel, as it was only brewed in one place: Burton upon Trent, and it was believed that its sweeter taste and higher strength rendered it more appealing. Meanwhile it was claimed that Red Barrel suffered from inferior marketing.
For Julian Crawshay (1923 – 2009), a marketing director for Watney Mann, “a beer developed for the 1950s is not right for the 1970s”. A spokesman for Leo Burnett, the Watney Mann advertising agency, described Red Barrel as “a golf club beer, all bitter and sharp”. Watney’s Red Barrel would be replaced by a new product which would appeal to the growing 18-35 demographic. Leo Burnett account manager Gordon Barrett emphasised, “the flow of continuity really had to be punctured quite severely”.
Watney’s Red was introduced in April 1971 following two years of development and experimentation with 30 different recipes. It was a “completely different beer”, crafted to be darker, fizzier and slightly sweeter. Watney Mann marketing director Giles Myrtle described how the new beer offered “a better palate”, with more body, a smooth mouthfeel, a creamy head and good lacing.
Watney’s Red was designed as a session beer, with greater drinkability and less of an aftertaste. Julian Crawshay explained, “we were looking for the customer who settles in his local pub and drinks eight or ten pints in an evening”.
For writer Frank Baillie the beer was “well balanced … with a burnt malty characteristic”. Meanwhile The Economist opined that the new product tasted “bland”. Journalist Roger Protz recalled that it tasted “like liquid Mars bars”.
A Watney’s Red Revolution print advertisement from 1971. Designed by C.R Holland.
The product launch for Watney’s Red was supported by a £500,000 television and poster campaign. Controversially, portrayals of Castro, Khrushchev and Mao were used alongside with the tagline, “long live the Watney’s Red revolution”. Cowl conversion on 30,000 Red Barrel keg dispensers cost a further £100,000. Pub interiors and exteriors were painted red in order to promote the new beer.
Watney Mann claimed that Red was “the most successful” new beer introduction “for years”.’ Watney’s Red initially enjoyed a 15 percent sales boost against Red Barrel, and was the brewery’s most profitable beer, although Watney’s Special Bitter sold in slightly higher volume. Around 350,000 barrels of Watney’s Red were produced in 1972, accounting for between 20 to 25 percent of Watney Mann sales.
The public backlash
Watney Mann was subject to a hostile takeover by Grand Metropolitan, the owner of Truman’s Brewery of London and a host of hospitality concerns, for £405 million in 1972. At the time it represented the largest takeover in British history. The acquisition placed Grand Metropolitan in control of over one third of London’s public houses.
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) pressure group had been established in 1971. CAMRA rallied against the rise of keg beer, which it argued lost much of its flavour due to the process of filtration and pasteurisation. Robert B Semple Jr of the New York Times reported:
Public Enemy Number One for CAMRA is Watney’s, in part because the standardized exterior of a Watney pub, with its bright red background and white lettering, seems to CAMRA to typify the kind of corporate thinking that produces the homogenized beer sold within.
Watney Mann initially denied that CAMRA had any influence at all. A company spokesman characterised CAMRA members as a “cranky bunch”, and cited market research that supposedly demonstrated that the public preferred keg beer.
Watney’s paraphernalia on display in Carry On Abroad (1972)
Watney’s Red sales began to decline following a successful launch, and volumes remained stubbornly behind those of Double Diamond. The recipe was adjusted twice to increase ABV and original gravity in 1973. Richard Boston (1938 – 2006), a beer writer for The Guardian, derided the tactic as “desperate”, and argued that “Watney’s themselves are becoming uncomfortably aware that people don’t like their beer”.
A “word-of-mouth campaign [had] degenerated Watney and its products; a campaign that started as a whisper and built up to such a roar that some observers felt that the very existence of Watney as ‘a name’ was at stake”, wrote Kenneth Gooding of the Financial Times.
The impact of cost-cutting
Why did Watney Mann become the target for the most virulent criticism from CAMRA? There is evidence to suggest that Watney beers really did taste worse than those of their competitors.
An anonymous former head brewer of a Drybrough subsidiary told The Scotsman, “it had got to the stage in the industry where we were brewing by committee. The market research men said what they wanted, then the accountants and everyone else. It seems the brewer’s palate came a long way down the line”. John Keeling, who worked as a laboratory technician for Watney Mann during the 1970s, echoed this view, arguing that the company, “seemed to manage by formula and brew beer by formula. What drove them was how to use science to make beer cheaper, not better”.*
The evidence of cost-cutting is clear. The company brewed with a grist of up to 50 percent raw barley with added bacterial enzymes in an effort to lower production costs from 1971. The proportion of raw barley had been increased to up to 70 percent of the grist from 1973.** The beer was also subject to excessive pasteurisation, and was, according to Keeling, “well oxidised by the time it reached four weeks, to be honest … the predominant flavour at shelf life was oxidised beer. But [Watney’s] didn’t seem to care about that, because they weren’t as interested in flavour.”***
Watney Mann responds
Concerned by criticism of the company, as well as by falling sales of its flagship beer, Grand Metropolitan installed Anthony Tennant (1931 – 2011) as marketing and sales director for Watney Mann in late 1973. Following a market research study Watney Mann acknowledged that the introduction of Watney’s Red had “backfired”. Marketing director Stephen Lewis explained, “people felt that we had over-rationalised our products after taking over smaller breweries”.
Tennant withdrew marketing support for Watney’s Red from 1975, and Ben Truman Export Draught was offered as an alternative premium keg bitter. Double Diamond and Whitbread Tankard continued to lead in sales, and Watney’s Red had fallen behind Worthington E, Younger’s Tartan Special and Courage Tavern by 1976.
Tennant introduced Watney’s Fined Bitter, a cask beer served under pressure, to the London tied estate in early 1976. A Watney’s spokesman commented, “this is a commercial move, not a labour of love. There is now a demand for traditional beers and we are climbing aboard the bandwagon”. The beer was later renamed Stag.
In a bid to rescue the company’s reputation local brands such as Tamplin’s, Usher’s and Wilson’s were revived, and greater autonomy was devolved to nine regional subsidiaries from September 1976. Scheduled brewery closures at Trowbridge and Halifax were reversed. Pub exteriors were now painted “varying shades of anything but red”, reported the Vancouver Sun. Efforts were made to reach out to CAMRA.
In 1977 a Watney’s spokesman admitted, “we used to think it was good to be big. Today we think it’s good to be small”. Watney’s London Bitter, a traditional unpressurised cask bitter, was introduced in 1978. Plastic and chrome public house interior decoration began to be phased out in the late 1970s. New pub signs emphasised local and traditional beers.
Red is dead and the re-emergence of cask beer
Following years of low sales, Grand Metropolitan announced that Watney’s Red would be discontinued in May 1979. “In the end the majority of pubs still stocking it were selling under 10 gallons a week”, admitted a Watney’s spokesman.
The fate of Watney’s Red was “a constant warning to over-zealous marketing men in any industry who try to push traditional consumer tastes too far, too fast”, argued David Manasian in Management Today.
Cask ale was sold across half of Watney’s tied estate by 1979. The company produced 14 different cask ales by 1980. Webster’s Yorkshire Bitter was introduced from 1982 and became the core cask ale brand. Pressurised cask beer had been phased out by 1983.
The Red Barrel corporate logo was discontinued in 1982. Watney’s Red Barrel continued to be produced for overseas markets, where the brand lacked the noxious reputation it had developed in Britain, including the United States and Belgium, where it had become the highest selling pale ale by 1984.
Grand Metropolitan acquired Ruddles Brewery of Rutland in order to increase its presence in the cask ale market for £14 million in 1986. The brewery received a £5 million investment in order to double output, and a further £1 million was spent on advertising the brand.
Watney Mann exits the brewing industry
The Belgian brewing interests were divested for £28 million in 1986. Drybrough, with 187 public houses, was sold to Allied Lyons for £48.5 million in 1987.
Grand Metropolitan sold its brewing interests to Courage for £316 million in 1991. Watney’s branded products such as Special Bitter, Special Mild, Pale Ale and Brown Ale had been discontinued by the mid-1990s. Red Barrel continued to be sold in the United States until the mid-1990s. Red Barrel remained available in Belgium, France and Spain into the late 1990s.
What remains of Watney Mann? Watney’s Scotch Ale survives in Belgium, and Mann’s Brown Ale remains available throughout Britain.
Postscript
What is the lesson of the history of Watney’s Red? It is a cautionary tale of what can happen when marketing and cost-cutting become overly powerful. What ultimately matters with a drinks brand is that its taste resonates with the customer base. Brands die when company management loses sight of the fundamentals.
Further reading
* The blogs of Boak & Bailey and Ron Pattinson are invaluable sources of Watney Mann information.
* The Red Barrel: a history of Watney Mann by Hurford Janes (1963)
W H Smith had almost 1,300 branches, a turnover of over £1.1 billion and just under 15,000 employees in 2013.
Early history
Henry Walton Smith (1738 – 1792) established a news stand on The Strand, London, in 1792. Smith died just a few months later and was eventually succeeded by his son, William Henry Smith. The business became involved in distributing newspapers throughout the provinces.
W H Smith opened his first railway station bookstall at Euston in 1848. Railways were the booming industry of the period. W H Smith had bookstalls on all the major railway lines, and many secondary lines, by the 1860s. W H Smith and its main newsagent rival John Menzies, were the first large-scale retail chains to emerge in Britain.
The business became a partnership when William Henry Smith was joined by his son, William Henry Smith II.
The Smith’s bookstalls became a national symbol in Victorian England. Annual turnover had surpassed £1 million (c. £115 million in 2014) by 1888.
Inevitably, the railway companies became greedy and began to demand extortionate rents from the highly profitable news stands. Smith’s realised that its bookstalls received about half of their business from non-train users. Worried about its dependence on the railway companies, Smith’s began to open stores on high streets from 1905.
8,285 people were employed by 1911. In 1914-5 turnover topped £2 million (c.£200 million in 2014), and reached £4.2 million (c. £220 million) by 1924-5.
W H Smith opened their first branch overseas in Paris in 1903. Brussels followed in 1920 and in 1936 the Queen Mary liner got its own branch.
In 1929 the partnership was registered as a private limited company in order to pay the death duties of Freddy Smith.
By 1933 Smith’s had 48 wholesale branches, 311 bookshops and 1,400 bookstalls. The company employed around 13,500 people and was one of the single largest employers in the country.
Smith’s goes public
By 1947-8 turnover was £10.4 million (£355 million). In 1948, W H Smith was valued at £9.75 million. William Smith, 3rd Viscount Hambleden, died that year, and his stake in the company was valued at £8.2 million. Smith’s was forced to go public in 1949 in order to fund the 75 percent death duty owed to the government.
The Canadian market was entered in 1950, when the first shop opened in Toronto.
In 1955, 18,104 people were employed at the company.
In 1951 there were 944 railway stalls, but by 1971 this number had fallen to 319. This reflected a trend towards high street outlets, which were larger and more profitable. In the 1960s outlets of a previously unprecedented size were opened in Bradford, Brighton, Stockport and Nottingham.
Smith’s ran a private library service until 1961. It was never particularly profitable, but the company reasoned that it attracted visitors to the stalls, who often bought other items. Lower book costs and the rise of the public library spelled the end for the venture. However, the loss of the library trade was more than made up for by Smith’s taking on gramophone records and cassette tape sales.
Smith’s employed capital of over £21 million in 1965 (around £365 million in 2014). By 1966 the company had 19,547 employees.
W H Smith was one of the fastest growing British companies during the 1970s.
In 1992 the W H Smith Group employed 29,320 people worldwide, including around 26,000 in the UK.
By 1996 the company had a turnover of £2.7 billion and 33,000 employees.
In 1996 the head office was mostly relocated from London to Swindon in order to reduce costs.
Today, around half of Smith’s units are in “travel” locations (railway stations, airports, motorway services) and half are located on high streets.
Smith’s had almost 1,300 branches, a turnover of over £1.1 billion and just under 15,000 employees in 2013. There were over 1,700 stores by 2020, mainly driven by international growth.
