Mac Fisheries
| Private company, Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Disposed/Closed |
| Successor | International Stores |
| Founded | 1918 |
| Defunct | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Bracknell, Berkshire, UK |
|
Key people
|
William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (founder) |
| Parent | Unilever 1922 - 1979 |
| Subsidiaries | Mac Food Centres, Premier Supermarkets |
Mac Fisheries was a branded United Kingdom retail chain of fishmongers, founded by William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, the co-founder with his brother of Lever Brothers, which later merged to become Unilever.
In his thirties, Lord Leverhulme had taken a boat trip and fallen in love with the Western Isles of Scotland. In May 1918 at the age of 66, he bought the Isle of Lewis for £167,000. Convinced that he could resurrect the fishing industry, he set about investing in all aspects of the supporting industries and supply/distribution chain.
Leverhulme's plan was to build an ice-making plant in Stornoway, building refrigerated cargo ships to take fish to a depot at Fleetwood, where he would build herring-curing facilities, a canning factory and a plant installed to make fish cakes, fish paste, glue, animal feed and fertiliser. To create a market for the fish, he started buying up independent fishmongers throughout Britain, rebranding them Mac Fisheries.
But in 1919, servicemen demobilised from World War I and promised land, started occupying plots on the Isle of Lewis. Leverhulme protested and took legal action against the people he considered squatters, but the Scottish Office took the side of the ex-servicemen, leaving Leverhulme's plan in tatters. Leverhulme announced that he would leave Lewis in 1923, offering to gift the Isle to the locals. But suspicion ran so high, that he was forced to sell again to long-term absentee landlords.
In late 1919, Leverhulme purchased the South Harris estate from the Earl of Dunmore for the sum of £36,000. Taking in the Western Isles fishing village of Obbe, he planned to turn it into a consolidated major fishing centre, with product distributed through the Mac Fisheries shops. In 1920, Obbe with local consent was rebranded Leverburgh, and 300 men started work on a new pier and seashore infrastructure for processing the product from 50 berthed trawlers. Shore side construction covered an accommodation block, curing sheds, smoke houses, a refrigeration building, store sheds, houses for the managers and a 20 car garage.
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Wikipedia