Cyrus Clark
 |
|
| Clarks | |
| Limited company | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | Street, England (1825) |
| Founder | Cyrus Clark and James Clark |
| Headquarters | Street, Somerset, England |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
Mike Shearwood, Chief executive officer |
| Products | Footwear |
| Revenue |
 £1,492m (2015) |
|
£129 m (2015) |
|
|
Number of employees
|
15,380 |
| Website | www |
C. & J. Clark International Ltd, trading as Clarks, is a British-based, international shoe manufacturer and retailer. It was founded in 1825 by brothers Cyrus and James Clark in Street, Somerset, England – where it still has its headquarters. The company has over 1,000 branded stores and franchises around the world and also sells through third-party distribution.
For the year ending January 2013, the company made a profit of £150 million on sales of £1,433m making it the 31st largest private company in the UK. More than half of its £1.4bn annualised sales to January were generated abroad, and since 2010 the company has moved into India, where it now has 25 stand-alone stores, and relaunched marketing in China, where it has opened 400 outlets in partnership with local footwear retailers.
It is 84% owned by the Clark family, with the remaining 16% held by employees and related institutions.
The company is renowned for its Desert Boot – a distinctive ankle height boot with crepe rubber sole, usually made out of calf suede leather traditionally supplied by Charles F Stead & Co tannery in Leeds. Officially launched in 1950 the Desert Boot was designed by Nathan Clark (great-grandson of James Clark) based on an unlined suede boot profile produced in the bazaars of Cairo and worn by British officers in the Second World War.
Origins of C. & J. Clark can be traced back to 1821 when Cyrus Clark (1801-1866) entered into a partnership with a Quaker cousin in the trade of fellmongering, woolstapling and tanning in Street, Somerset. By 1825, this partnership had been dissolved and Cyrus relocated to a site on the High Street in Street, utilising premises that belonged to his father-in-law to exploit his idea of making rugs out of sheepskins instead of pulling off the wool. C. & J. Clark recognise this as the beginning of their business and continue to occupy the site upon which Cyrus started to this very day.
By 1828, as the business had grown, Cyrus appointed his younger brother James (1811-1906) as an apprentice. Educated away from Street, James was meant to be apprentice to a chemist in Bath, but successfully pleaded with his parents to let him stay in Street and help Cyrus. In 1828-1829, whilst serving this apprenticeship, James began utilising the offcuts that were too short for making rugs to produce slippers (known as Brown Petersburgs). The slippers were made using outworkers who collected materials from the factory, assembled footwear in workshops at home and returned the finished product for payment. This trade rapidly evolved, providing James with a legitimate claim to an equal partnership in the business when his apprenticeship was served in 1833. Thereafter, it traded as C. & J. Clark.
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Wikipedia