Freemans
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| Plc | |
| Industry | Clothing retail catalogue |
| Founded | 1904 |
| Founder | John Freeman |
| Headquarters | Bradford, United Kingdom |
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Key people
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United Kingdom |
| Products | Clothing |
| Parent | Otto UK |
| Website | www.freemans.com |
Freemans is a British catalogue clothing retailer.
The company was founded as Freemans & Co in 1905 by four partners, A.C. Rampton, W.E. Jones, S.C. Rampton and H.A. Freeman and began life with only twelve staff out of a terraced house based in Clapham, just outside London. Each member putting up £100 as capital to get the business going. equivalent to £9,684 in 2015.
They specialised in selling clothing items and they distributed their catalogue each month throughout the United Kingdom. The initial catalogues were made up of black and white illustrations that reflected the available products.
Of the product range the ‘made to measure’ suits were a success, offering a cheap tailored opportunity for customers at the time, costing only 30 shillings, equivalent to £145 in 2015
The company used agency representatives in local areas as a form of credit control and to manage sales, with most goods being sold on credit. Women however were restricted by law as they could not negotiate credit arrangements and required a husband’s signature to purchase goods. Therefore, the majority of agents were men.
A year later, newly named Freemans of London moved to larger premises at 215 Lavender Hill, Wandsworth. Company staff are affectionately nicknamed ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’, some 45 years prior to the famous British film of the same name being made.
In 1914 the company was forced to direct its efforts towards the war effort and ceasing expansion focuses on buying blankets and selling them to the Government and the armed forces.
The 1920s saw the introduction of colour photography in the Freemans catalogues and the company continued to expand, with 200 people being employed by 1922. This led to another move,into a converted cinema that was formally known as ‘the Gem’, but saw the company remain in the Lavender Hill area of London.
Freemans grew to dominate the mail order landscape in the 1930s, being the largest mail order company in the UK with over 30,000 agents. Expansion also meant that the company was required to move into larger premises at 139 Clapham Road, London, a move they made in 1937.
By 1937 Freemans had expanded their product line to include important labour saving household service items such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Now in new offices they also became a privately held company.
Being situated so close to London had unfortunate consequences during the Second World War as the Clapham offices were bombed killing 23 members of staff and destroying all company records. However the company continued to trade, now limited to a much smaller range of products due to the scarcity of suppliers and more essential use of raw materials. In fact the catalogue featured only clothing items, but these could now be purchased using the newly introduced coupon rate system. By the end of the war as rationing had taken full effect, clothing coupons were the only way to pay for clothes.
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Wikipedia