General Chat

Jack Cohen (Jacob Kohn, Sir John Edward Cohen) was born to an immigrant family in East End of London in 1898. They had escaped a pogrom with few possessions.

Father was a tailor and workshop was within their house. Jack served with the Royal Flying Corps in WW1, doing sewing repairs to planes, contracted malarial fever and was invalided out with a £30 war gratuity in 1919.

Worked markets for next 11 years and then found that property developers round London were failing to sell houses in Depression because established shopkeepers were not prepared to take a risk. No shops nearby, no house sales.

He was prepared to open his stalls in these empty shops as long as rates and rent were free for a year. By then he had established a retail market format that worked in new commuter places in Home Counties. He had 100 shops by outbreak of war - all with shutter fronts and none of them anywhere near 2,000 sq ft of sales area (which later became the definition of a supermarket0.

First self service experiment in UK was Co-op in Wembley in 1938. First Tesco self service experiment was 1948 in St Albans (and it failed!!!). First Tesco supermarket (over 2,000 sq ft) was Croydon in 1956. First Tesco "superstore" or "hypermarket" (over 20,000 sq ft) was Lee Circle, Leicester in 1961 followed closely by Crawley and Gravesend. :-)

Many thanks, TS. I expect someone will want to ruin it. Reason I have put it up is that a couple of posters mentioned Tesco and a recent interview with Sir Terry Leahy on another thread. I responded and had a little discussion and I am now the villain and need to continually be chaste. Not sure of spelling, but accurate anyway ;-)

1977 was when Tesco ditched Green Shield stamps, reduced their prices hugely, had all sorts of problems that companies experience with a doubling of sales and no proper infrastructure to cope - and profits began to drop alarmingly. Hence Kwik Save sniffing with a hostile takeover bid. And 3 Tesco shops in North Wales closed for lunch - probably more :-D

Very interesting thread John. I hope nobody decides to ruin it.

Wndy

Vfm :-D :-D Earwigging can teach us a lot

Jo. Must eat humble pie again. Oh, yes, I remember it well. My goodness, you do know that area. I was other side of London (Harrow area) but if there was a new store opening we all had to pile in.

Someone was saying - John was not a manager, he was a shelf stacker. Well, a cashier and a back door man as well. And a bit of butching. No managers in those days sat in office and walked round with a clipboard now and again. Very hard days, very very long hours. But it was such fun.

original market stall was in leeds
moto don't ask the price it's a penny
bit of am early poundland in a way
went into partnership with a clerk who worked for the man who lent him the money to start up
have their own museum
quite a bit about them here
http://www.marksintime.marksandspencer.com/the-collection/
quick edit
marks and sparks i mean

John

I think that the shop you helped open was also in Well Street as that was definitely in the 1970s. The shop in Mare Street is a Superstore and I believe this came in to being much, much later.

I know the area well.

Jo

I found out that obscure fact when someone visited a National Trust property I was a volunteer at. A visitor was telling his friend, and I was earwigging - just had to go home and verify it and found it was true

Vfm. Fortnum & Mason, M & S and Tesco on same thread. But so interesting to me to find out how these major names started out.

Tesco really struggled to get out of "pile it high, sell it cheap" and dayglo posters in 1960's. Jack was still very much in charge with his two sons in law in toe.

A management consultant was brought in because Jack wanted to control everything that moved. He ran a seminar with all the Directors in the Board Room in Cheshunt. The phone kept ringing. It was companies with good deals. Jack kept answering the phone and doing a deal then coming back to meeting.

In exasperation, the consultant said "can we hold all phone calls for half an hour otherwise we will never get through this seminar about "delegation"."

Jack grabbed the phone and said to the operator. No more calls to me or any of the Directors in the Board Room until further notice"

"Unless they're important" :-(

Jax :-D It was Wimpey. Can't imagine a group of Tesco Directors today even slumming it in somewhere like the Dorchester :-D

Fortnum and Mason was started by a guy who raised his money selling used candles
Fortnum, meet Mason

In 1705 Hugh Mason had a small shop in St James’s Market and a spare room in his house. The Fortnum family had come to London from Oxford as high-class builders in the wake of the Great Fire, helping to establish the St James’s and Mayfair areas as the most fashionable in London. William climbed another rung by taking a post as footman in Queen Anne’s household - and the room at Mr Mason’s

The Royal Family’s insistence on having new candles every night meant a lot of half-used wax for an enterprising footman to sell on at a profit – so while the Queen’s wages paid the rent, William’s enlightened sideline melted down into enough to start a respectable business. The rest, as they say, is grocery.

Not the Wimpey was it John? frankfurter had slits in it to make it curl, egg in the middle

I quite fancy a Wimpey, was only saying to HID earlier he could go and get me one

You are absolutely correct Joeva

Joeva. Yes, sorry. Mare St was where we opened a shop about 1970 when I first started with Tesco. Went down to help with shelf filling.

Jack opened the shop and said it was where he had started. But no, you are absolutely right. It was Well St. Can't remember his other stalls, but one of the first 6 was definitely Croydon. Mrs Harrow used to help him run that, and her son Jim was the very first lorry driver. Jim used to tell me of his trips out to Bristol along A4 in early 1930's. At 20mph, it was a 2 day round trip from Edmonton where the first depot was sited.

John

Just like to correct you the market that Jack Cohen first had a stall in was Well Street and not Mare Street. Both in Hackney I know but Mare Street has never had a market whereas Well Street is still trading today.

Jo

Yes, Marks & Spencers had similar origins. Don't know an awful lot about their history, but believe in was Penny Bazaars. I know they were not very respectable till well after WW2 in many places.

They decided about 1948 what their business was all about. Social revolution. Bringing middle class clothes to the working classes at prices workers could afford.

Ooh terryj doesn't know us old biddies very well. ROFLMAO

John has a new best friend, well someone has to have terryj :-P

Hope somebody finds it interesting, Hayley and Terry. Jack Cohen was great old character. Bit of a slippery fish, but great fun. He took a bunch of quite senior executives down to Smithfield for an important meeting in late 1960's. "Lunch is on me boys"

Then he took them to that chain restaurant that did frankfurters and thin chips - can't remember what it was called. Loads of them in those days. And ordered egg & chips 8 times :-D

ah, Terry who came up with three equally disgusting names for gay men - if anyone would like to know the words he used, please contact me

I am more a cyber sister kind of gal myself terrj :-D

very interesting john
bit like marks and spence from little acorns

ps don't let the old biddys bully you off the threads typical keyboard warriors hide behind the monitor but wouldn't say boo to your face