Swaine Adeney Brigg
| Private | |
| Industry | Manufacturing and retailing |
| Predecessors |
|
| Founded | London |
| Founder | John Ross |
| Headquarters | London, SW1 United Kingdom |
|
Key people
|
John Ross; James Swaine (1766–1837); William Isaac; Edward Swaine (1795–1862); James Adeney (1821–1898); Edward Swaine Adeney (1847–1920); James William Adeney (1849–1918); Edward Swaine Adeney Jr (b. 1875); Bertie Walter Brigg; Gilbert Latimer Adeney; Robert Edward John Adeney; Anthony Tryon; Rohan Courtney; John de Bruyne; Roger Gawn |
| Products | luxury luggage and umbrella maker |
| Website | swaineadeneybrigg |
Swaine Adeney Brigg is a British luxury bridle-leather luggage maker and umbrella-maker and retailer founded in the mid-eighteenth century.
The firm of Swaine & Adeney was said to have been founded in London in 1750, but the earliest documentary evidence goes back to around 1760 when a saddler named John Ross set up a whip manufactory in London. His first-known factory was in Marylebone Street (now incorporated in Glasshouse Street), just to the north of Piccadilly. Among his customers were Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont. Ross's Marylebone Street premises were lost in a fire in July 1769, but by the following year he was trading at 238 Piccadilly on the south side of the street just a few doors away from the largest coaching inn, the White Bear, at No. 235.
Ross sold his business in 1798 to a whip-maker named James Swaine, who had been apprenticed to Benjamin Griffith & Co., whip-makers of High Holborn, and the firm of Swaine & Co. (James Swaine in partnership with Benjamin Slocock) carried on business from the Piccadilly address. The first Royal Warrant was granted by King George III for carriage riding whips. Ledgers show that the Prince Regent and his friends – the "Prinny's Set" – figured among the firm's customers.
Trade directories show that by 1822 the firm had moved a few doors west to 224, and an advertisement in the Morning Post announced a further change of address in 1835 to "more elligible" premises at No. 185, next door to Fortnum & Mason's.
Not long after Slocock's retirement in 1825, James Swaine invited William Isaac to become a partner, which role he assumed from at least 1829 to 1848. After George IV's death in 1830, Swaine & Isaac were re-appointed as whip-makers to his brother William IV and in 1837 to the new queen, Victoria. James Swaine left his business to his son Edward. By 1845, the firm of Swaine & Isaac had branched out into the sale of walking sticks of fine quality.
In 1845, some three years before William Isaac resigned, Edward Swaine took into partnership his nephew and son-in-law James Adeney, who had served a seven-year apprenticeship with him. For a short time the firm was known as Swaine, Isaac & Adeney, and then for almost a hundred years, from 1848 to 1943, the firm bore the name Swaine & Adeney, becoming Swaine & Adeney Ltd on incorporation in 1910.
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Wikipedia