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Wimborne

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Wimborne image from www.flickr.com Wimborne image from www.flickr.com Article Published in the Illustrated Bristol News 1962. THE HISTORY OF THE GROWTH OF the John Hall Group of companies is a story of steady expansion following on the initial struggle of a determined man to make good despite early difficulties and lack of money. The late Mr. John Hall, the son of a saddler, was born and bred in Derbyshire. After leaving Ashbourne School, he was apprenticed to a local ironmonger. Owing to poor health the family doctor advised him to emigrate to Australia. After working for some time as representative for a Portsmouth tool dealer at a salary of 17/-a week, he went to Australia where among other jobs he worked in a hardware shop and on a sheep ranch. Four years later he was unlucky enough to lose his savings of £100 when the Bank of Victoria suspended payments. After this disappointment he returned to England and obtained a position in an ironmongers shop in Cardiff. He quickly realised that there was room for a Tool Dealers business in that city. In 1894, he opened a shop with a capital of £250. Competition was intense and many goods were sold under cost. There was a real danger of failure, so he prepared a line of retreat by opening a branch in Newport, where he went to live with his newly-wed bride. This venture proved successful and soon there was also a branch in Swansea, and, in 1923, a branch in Bristol, where his wife had lived with two aunts. In 1923 also, the Company of John Hall (Tools) Limited was formed with a nominal capital of £20,000. The original Bristol premises were at 4 Bridge Street, an old building with interesting Dutch tiled fireplaces in the upstairs rooms and an iron studded door leading to arched cellars under the road. In June, 1926, the eldest daughter, Miss M. C. Hall, who had been Secretary of the Company and worked at the Bristol branch, left to marry Mr. Hugh Millar, the now well known watch, clock and jewellery wholesaler. She is now an active member of Bristol’s Inner Wheel. When Mr. John Hall died in 1937 at the age of 73, it could indeed be said that, with a further branch in Birmingham, he had succeeded in his ambition to become one of the leading Tool Dealers in the West of England and South Wales. Three Sons Clifford, John and Ralph were all engaged in the business at the time of his death and between them took over the management. The type of trade was changing, sales to factories and Industrial users were becoming increasingly more important than the retail side. With the coming of World War II, the business became a more vital one as the prompt supply of tools urgently needed for producing weapons was essential, and the John Hall Company did their best to meet the ever increasing demand. In the November, 1940 blitz on Bristol, the Bridge Street premises were totally destroyed and the valuable stocks were lost. Temporary accommodation for the industrial side was obtained in Lawrence Hill and a retail shop opened at 3 St. Augustines Parade. The move into the present address at 7 Broad Quay, in the City Centre, was made in 1944 and soon afterwards owing to expiration of lease the St. Augustines Parade shop was transferred to 106 Redcliffe Hill. This branch was recently closed when the premises were demolished to make way for the Redcliffe Hill Improvement Scheme. Mr. S. T. Bowden was in charge of the Bristol shop from 1924 until his death in July, 1959 and had much to do with the building up of this business. He was a director of the Company for over twenty years. He has been succeeded by Mr. T. C. G. Fithyan, who started with the Company in 1934, assisted by Mr. P. C. G. Kingston. Since’ the War progress has continued but instead of opening new branches the Firm has tended to buy and develop small existing businesses. The first of these was in Rugby, bought in 1947, but after striving to make the business grow, it was decided that Rugby was too small to support it and it was transferred to Leicester. In 1954, another Engineering Distributors business was purchased, this time in Manchester, and three years later the Company acquired its present headquarters in Churchill Way, Cardiff. In 1959 a number of developments took place. While negotiations were going on for the purchase of a retail tool business in Kingsmead Square, Bath, formerly known as W. Paisey, an ironmongery business, which had been established for 59 years, was being closed in Coventry and the Company seized the opportunity to buy their tool stocks and premises. In June, the branch was opened in Bath and one week later the premises at Coventry. The shop at Bath is the Company’s smallest retail shop, but probably the most attractive, the Manager being Mr. D. T. Bartram. In 1960 a former flour mill in Wimborne, Dorset, was acquired and stocked as a warehouse for customers on the South Coast, but the real achievement in that year was the purchase of a business in London, which has already taken its place as the second largest branch. The Company new has branches or depots situated in strategically placed towns to cover any part of the country, south of a line from Liverpool to the Wash, but trade is not confined to that area. There are customers as far north as Glasgow and Edinburgh. John Hall’s do not manufacture, but export and sell to industry and the trade, as well as retailing. Pakistan is an important customer, and so too is the Middle East and West Africa. Last year the Company fulfilled an order to the Iraq Railway totalling some £12,000. Many new industrial projects have been equipped since the War including Power Station Workshops, Distillation Plants and Technical Colleges in Kuwait, Power Station Workshops in Iran and Iraq, Engineering Shops in Bermuda and POSX er Station Workshops in Malaya. Tools and equipment have also been exported to Turkey, Pakistan, India, Nigeria, Kenya, the Phillipines and the Moldise Islands. Education Authorities and Technical Colleges throughout Britain have also been supplied with tools and machines. The Company is particularly proud of its Catalogue — the first issued was a piece of card similar to a sports fixture list. A comparison with the present prices makes interesting reading. Fifty years ago a half inch chisel retailed at 5d., now it costs 5 2d. A No. 2 joiner’s hammer has risen from 10d. to 8/9d., a 24' handsaw costing 37 shillings& 6d. was 31d., a No 4 Stanley Plane has increased by 700% from 5/7d. to 44 shillings & 9d. In the early Catalogue tools were measured to a sixteenth of an inch, but in the latest an optical flat is accurate to .000001 of an inch. The most recent Catalogue, issued in May, 1961, contained oxer 700 pages and 8,000 copies costing £12,000 have been delivered. Recently the directors have received a letter from a very satisfied customer of 1900, saying that he bought a razor then, and wished them to know that it was still giving him excellent service. Although the main expansion of the group has been in the industrial user field, this does not mean that the retail trade has been neglected. Several of the retail shops have recently been redesigned on a self selected basis. As the majority of these shops are in South Wales or the West of England, the Company has been able to make good use of advertisements on TWW. Television. - These started in a small way with slides; then a short film was made with the ‘Call on John Hall’ tune; and now there are cartoons with a full musical background. In 1958 the Group was reorganised and a holding company John Hall Tools (Group) Limited was formed with a nominal capital of £100,000. The present directors are Mr. John Hall, Chairman, Mr. Ralph Hall, Managing Director, and Mrs. I. R. M. Hall, widow of the late Mr. Clifford Hall who died in 1959; employee directors are Mr. S. Lloyd-Evans, Sales Director, and Mr. G. Williams, Birmingham Manager. Since Mr. Lloyd-Evans took over the sales department in 1946 business has multiplied fivefold. Other directors of the subsidiary companies are Mr. H. F. Frost, Mr. H. R. Richards. Mr. H. E. Skilton and Mr. J. F. Hall, the first of the third generation. Mr. J. F. Hall joined the firm in 1960 after studying at Clifton College and Peterhouse, Cambridge. The founder of the firm the late Mr. John Hall succeeded in doubling the size and financial resources of the business every ten years — this is a very difficult standard to maintain but the present directors are very proud of the fact that they are still succeeding in doing so. Wimborne image from www.flickr.com

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