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English Companies and Their Founders

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English Companies and their Founders

The goal of this topic is to identify and honour the people who started English Companies, both National and International. A list of the people who have been classified as a founder of an English company can be found at Founders of English Companies category. There are no doubt many more to add, and to categorise.

Small print

Not all of the founders of English companies were/are English, but to feature on this page the companies had to be started in England.

Some of the company links are to categories for the company on Wikitree, which may include founders and employees, others are links to external websites relating to the company.

The Companies

There have been so many English companies, this is only a small selection. The subheadings on this page are a bit arbitrary, and who is included is probably not up to date with who has a category on wikitree ...

Often what a company does now, in the 2020s, is not at all what they started out doing! And many are no longer trading.

Aircraft

Automotive manufacturers

Cycles

  • Halfords motoring and cycle products retailer, founded by Frederick Rushbrooke in Birmingham in 1892, originally as a wholesale ironmongers.

Chemicals

Confectioners

  • Fox's Confectionary Ltd was founded by Walter Richard Fox (originally as Joyce & Fox) in Braunstone, Leicester in 1880. His son Eric developed their most famous product, Fox's Glacier Mints in 1918.
  • Terry's of York evolved from a business founded 1767 in York. Robert Berry and William Bayldon were the original proprietors but by 1828 the sole owner was Joseph Terry, who had married a relative of Berry's. The Chocolate Orange was introduced in 1932 when his grandson Frank and great grandson Noel were running the company.

Cosmetics

Department Stores

  • C&A is Dutch but once appeared on many English high streets.

Entertainment

  • EMI has its origins in The Gramophone Company founded in April 1898 in London by William Barry Owen and Edmund Trevor Lloyd Wynne Williams, commissioned by Emil Berliner (inventor of the gramophone record). They produced records under the label His Master's Voice later abbreviated to HMV. In 1931 they merged with The Columbia Graphophone Company - originally established in the US but since 1922 the British subsidiary had been independent. The merged company was renamed Electric and Musical Industries Ltd, but came to be known as EMI.
  • Littlewoods football pools, mail-order catalogue and retail stores was founded in 1923 by John Moores in Liverpool.

Foods and beverages

  • Chivers and Sons started by market gardeners then jam manufacturers John Chivers and his son Stephen in Histon, Cambridgeshire. Both Chivers and William Hartley & Sons Limited (founded 1884 in Bootle by William Pickles Hartley) were acquired by Premier Foods who decided to produce the Hartley's brand at Histon, and divested Chivers to an Irish company, Boyne Valley Group.
  • J & J Colman was founded by miller Jeremiah Colman when he bought the mustard business of Edward Ames in 1814 and moved production to a mill at Stoke Holy Cross, Norfolk. In 1903 they bought Keen Robinson & Co (Robinsons barley water, founded by Matthias Robinson 1775-1837 in 1820s London). In 1838 it merged with Reckitt & Sons (household goods), founded by Isaac Reckitt in Hull, 1840) to form Reckitt & Colman, bought by Unilever in 1995.
  • KP originally Kenyon Produce. Nuts, crisps and snacks. Founded by Charles Kenyon (1833-1893) of Rotherham around 1860, originally making jam and sweets until Lithuania-born nut fanatic Simon Heller 1906-1989 joined the company after his Hercules Nut Company factory burned down. He became chairman and introduced salted peanuts in 1953.
  • Liebig's Extract of Meat Company may not be a household name, but they came up with the brands Oxo and Fray Bentos (tinned meat - named after a port in Uruguay). The company was founded in London in 1865 by a group of entrepreneurs led by German chemist Johann Justus von Liebig
  • Paxo poultry stuffing said to have been invented by Eccles butcher John Crampton in 1901 but he is proving a difficult man to pin down in census records...
  • Pimm's was created by London shellfish bar owner James Pimm around 1823 to aid customers with digestion. Now owned by Diageo.
  • Rank Hovis McDougall make flour, bread and biscuits. Hovis began in 1886 in Macclesfield, produced by Samuel Fitton & Sons, millers (who existed at least 50 years earlier), based on a production process patented by their miller Richard "Stoney" Smith (1836–1900), the name "Hovis" coming from a public competition. In 1957 it merged with McDougall Brothers, another flour producer, started in 1864 by John McDougall and his 4 brothers. In 1962 Hovis-McDougall was bought by J Rank Ltd, founded by Joseph Rank in Hull in 1875. The merged company later acquired Be-Ro (founded by Thomas Bell 1848-1925 in Longhorsley, Northumberland, originally as Bell's Royal Flour). They also introduced the Mr Kipling range of cakes, sadly Mr Kipling was a fictitious invention for marketing. The whole company was acquired by Premier Foods in 2007.
  • The Smiths Snackfood Company better known as Smiths Crisps was founded in 1920 in Cricklewood as a family enterprise by Frank Smith. After a series of corporate ownership changes, the Smiths brand was largely dropped in favour of Walkers in the 1990s, but remains on some products in the UK and Australia.
  • Spillers Ltd Pet food (Winalot) and flour (Homepride). Began when Joel Spiller started milling in Bridgewater, Somerset in 1829. Bought by Dalgety plc in 1979 who sold the bakery side of the business to Allied Bakeries, the flour milling business to Kerry Group and the pet food business to Nestle.
  • Tate & Lyle, food processing, originally sugar refiners formed from the 1921 merger of longstanding rival companies Henry Tate & Sons founded in 1859 in Lancashire and Abram Lyle & Sons founded in 1887 in Scotland, but both operating out of huge warehouse factories in Silvertown in London. The two company founders reputedly never met each other.
  • Thomas Wall & Sons sausages, meat pies and ice cream, established in 1878 by Thomas Wall, son of pork butcher Richard Wall who reportedly first sold meat in 1776 (aged 9). Thomas's son Thomas Wall introduced ice cream as a way to avoid summer lay-offs when demand for meat fell. The businesses are now split, with Kerry Foods owning the meat business and Unilever the ice-cream side.

Glass

Manufacturing

  • East Riding Garage and Engineering Works, later the Armstrong Patent Company, set up by Fullerton George Gordon Armstrong (1885-1969) in Beverley, Yorkshire in 1907, making (amongst other things) shock absorbers for the automotive industry.
  • Thorn Electrical Industries electrical/electronic goods Sir Jules Thorn (1899-1980) founded the company with his business partner Alfred Deutsch in March 1928 as The Electric Lamp Service Company Ltd. Merged then de-merged with EMI from 1979-1996.

Pharmacies

Publishing

Retail

  • Currys electronic goods, founded by Henry Curry in Leicester, 1884 (initially selling bicycles), incorporated by his sons in 1927. Acquired (by)/merged with Dixons, PC World and Carphone Warehouse.
  • B&Q Home improvement outlets. Founded by Richard Block and his brother-in-law David Quayle in Southampton, 1969. Now owned by Kingfisher plc.
  • Rumbelows electronic goods rental, founded by Sidney Rumbelow 1909-1974, later acquired by Thorn Electrical Industries, who merged it into the eponymous group of shops founded by Fred Dawes in 1969, but using the Rumbelows name. It was merged into Radio Rentals in 1989 and the Rumbelows name was gradually phased out, although it briefly sponsored the English Football League Cup from 1990-1992.

Shipbuilding

Shoemakers

Textiles

Tobacco

Feel free to add! And please add the category 'Founders of English Companies' to the profiles of the founders.

Please feel free, or get in touch, if you would like to contribute to these or others.





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Barnards the silversmiths

Edward Barnard, who was manager of a silversmiths, went into partnership with Rebecca Emes and Henry Chawner in 1808 and then founded Edward Barnard and Sons in 1829. Edward Barnard & Sons made the royal christening font, the Lily Font, for Queen Victoria. Edward was the brother of my three times great-grandmother, Mary Barnard. The company merged with Padgett and Braham and the whole thing closed down in 2003; the original company had started about 1680.

Booseys the Music Publishers

Edward married Mary Boosey who was the daughter of John Boosey whose WikiTree entry by Trevor Pickup says, "The firm of Boosey & Co. originated as a lending library which was founded by John Boosey." Booseys became the music publishers still in business in partnership as Boosey and Hawkes. Many choral singers will be familiar with Booseys. Mary Boosey was a sister-in-law of my 3x great-grandmother.

posted by Judith (Sidaway) Brooksbank
edited by Judith (Sidaway) Brooksbank
How about Hopcraft and Norris brewers, founded by the aptly named Alfred Hopcraft.
posted by Bennet George
Thanks for the reminder, I've just done this Silversmith too. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Myatt-196
posted by Gill Whitehouse
Odd coincidence, Halfords and Raleigh, our two entries under "cycles" are both named after the streets on which they were founded, rather than the name of the founder!
posted by Stephen Corkey
To add: Gilbey family (gin distillers).

To research: R White, Schwind and Pennington (Ladbrokes), Harold Pickup (Harpic)

For my own reference: McCain and Schwarz are Canadian; Woolworths, Birdseye, Proctor & Gamble and Hellmans are American; Knorr is German.

I posted a note on Frank Smith (Smiths Crisps) on how to find information on William Alexander (Golden Wonder), Charles Kenyon (KP) and Joseph "Spud" Murphy (Tayto) but didn't actually build them yet. KP is the only English one there. Please, anyone feel free to jump in if you feel like building a profile. Same goes for any bold names that aren't on Wikitree yet (I'll get round to them all eventually if no-one else does).

I've been looking into Walkers Crisps origin story ("In 1948 a butcher called Henry Walker...") and I find some elements difficult to believe. The repeated elements are he moved from Mansfield in 1880 and opened a butcher's shop in Leicester, then in 1912 moved premises to Cheapside. Let's set aside how old he would have to be in 1948. There was a Walkers butchers in Leicester as early as 1824 making pork pies (Walker & Sons, founder Mark Walker), and there's a Henry Walker and Sons shop in Oadby still trading today that is known for pork pies. Could the "Henry Walker" story be an attempt to claim pre-existing goodwill? I can find one Henry Walker in Leicester in the 1939 register born 1871, none of the Henry Walkers in 1911 or 1901 are described as butchers, and no-one else appears to have been able to pin down the Henry Walker who made his crisp breakthrough in 1948. I challenge Wikitree to find this man!

posted by Stephen Corkey
edited by Stephen Corkey
You might consider Boddington's Brewery, one of the founders, Henry Boddington, already has a profile on Wikitree.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Boddington-191

Dennis Brothers -- automobiles. Next Week's EPOW is featuring automotive founders.

Herbert Raymond Dennis KBE and his brother John Henry Cawsey Dennis do not have individual Wikipedia pages, although Dennis Brothers does.

I would love to see more non-Americans featured, and would be happy for anything that might get these two profiles ready for an EPOW feature as supporting profiles. (Henry Ford is the Feature Profile.)

I have not nominated either of them, as they do not - currently - have a Notables sticker. They ARE Connected, both have pictures, and basic biographies.

Is there anyone who can help?

posted by Melanie Paul
Thanks to those who have responded thus far. I love collaboration!  :)
posted by Melanie Paul
Thanks, again, to those who helped. Herbert is to be one of the support profiles this week.


It would be great if there was an interested someone who'd like to expand on their company some day, and who would maybe do a space page for the company under this Topic header. Sadly, automobiles are not an area in which I am interested. (Authors, yes, cars, not so much -- even though I can appreciate a good-looking one. For example, the Dennis Brothers' VCC 1902 Dennis is a really pretty car. As is Genevieve - in which I was once privileged to be permitted to sit, and toot her horn. (I also had a silver pendant to commemorate the event, long since lost.))

posted by Melanie Paul
You might consider Sarson's, which was quite famous for its vinegar from the late 19th century. Sarson-117 would be a good person to look at in connection with this.

Russell Gerrard-621

posted by Russell Gerrard
"Don't say vinegar, say Sarsons"
posted by JG Weston