Freemans is a British online and
catalogue clothing retailer headquartered in
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
, England. Freemans offers a range of products, predominantly clothing, footwear and homewares.
History
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
Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
History
Early history ...
, south London. Each member put up £100 as capital to get the business going, .
Freemans specialised in selling clothing items and distributed its 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, . 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 after it was founded, the newly named Freemans of London moved to larger premises at 215
Lavender Hill
The A3036 is an A road in London, England, running from Waterloo to Wandsworth.
Route
It starts at the southern tip of the County Hall roundabout where the A302 Westminster Bridge, York Road and A23 Westminster Bridge Road all interse ...
,
Wandsworth
Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
Toponymy
Wandsworth takes its nam ...
. 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 plans, focus on buying blankets and selling them to the Government and the armed forces.
The 1920s saw the introduction of colour photographs 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 formerly known as "the Gem", but saw the company remain in the Lavender Hill area of
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
.
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 needed to find larger premises; it moved to 139 Clapham Road, London, in 1937.
By 1937 Freemans had expanded its product line to include important labour-saving household service items such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines. Now in new offices, it also became a privately held company.
Being situated so close to London had unfortunate consequences during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
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.
Despite the staff count reducing to less than 300 by 1945, the 1950s was a period of boom for the mail order industry. New levels of disposable income as part of a "post-war" boom led to increased levels of consumerism and Freemans capitalised on this by producing a fully colourised 1000-page catalogue that was distributed by mail and featured a much wider range of products. The credit proposition was also giving Freemans a USP that wasn't available on the
high street
High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...
, and was also perhaps the primary reason catalogue shops such as
Grattan,
Littlewoods
Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe, but subsequently declined in the face of increased com ...
and
Empire Stores did so well during this period.
In 1963 Freemans PLC was floated on the
stock market
A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange, ...
as it became a public limited company, and it installed its very first computer, being the first mail order company to do so. This was just one example of how Freemans built a name as the most pioneering mail order company in the UK, followed by the introduction of telephone ordering and digital catalogues.
Looking further afield, Freemans opened a new international division, with the aim to break into the worldwide marketplace. The venture eventually made Freemans one of the 140 recipients of the
Queens Award for Export Achievement in 1995.
In 1969 the company required more warehouse space and opened an automated distribution centre in
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...
, England. It became the first company to post goods in plastic packaging and was also the first UK company to generate heat from
waste packaging.
Once again Freemans looked at an innovative way to progress its business as it introduced a telephone ordering service for its agents. This was further developed five years later as a telephone system was introduced to deal with both customer and agent queries.
Tony Rampton
Tony Rampton (born 30 May 1976) is a New Zealand former professional basketball player.
Early life and college
Rampton was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, and attended New Plymouth Boys' High School.
Rampton left New Zealand as a rising 1 ...
, grandson of one of the founders, served Freemans as Managing Director (1964–1965), Chairman (1965–1984) and President (1984–1988).
Sears PLC
In 1988 Freemans was purchased by
Sears PLC
Sears plc was a large British-based conglomerate. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Philip Green in 1999.
History
The business was founded by John and Willi ...
, whose other investments included bookmakers
William Hill and the controlling arm of
Selfridges
Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridg ...
, turning it into one of the country's largest retail organisations. It also meant that Freemans could now easily source and stock popular high street brands and promote them in its catalogue.
Innovation
In 1994 an interactive catalogue was produced and distributed on a CD. This was an innovative stage at a time for a business which over the past century had relied heavily on its paper catalogue. The idea won many awards for creativity and ingenuity, but was subsequently superseded by the presence of an online catalogue in the form of a company e-commerce website which was created in 1997. By then, Sears had sold Freemans, leaving it an independent company once again.
In 1997
Littlewoods
Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe, but subsequently declined in the face of increased com ...
plc attempted to take over Freemans but the move was blocked by the
Monopolies and Mergers Commission
The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under ...
of the
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
. However, within two years the company had attracted the attention of German mail order giant
Otto Versand, which had already entered the UK market with the purchase of established mail order name
Grattan in 1991.
Initially, Freemans operations remained in London, but it was quickly integrated with the
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
-based Grattan, not only utilising its head office at Anchor House, Ingleby Road, Bradford, but also warehousing in
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...
and Bradford and a call centre in
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire ...
.
In 2005 Freemans revamped its website. This was the first in a number of moves to react to the increasing online business. By 2008 the brand logo had changed from Freemans to Freemans.com to reflect the doubling in online sales over the previous two years.
A year later Freemans was presented an award by ''
More
More or Mores may refer to:
Computing
* MORE (application), outline software for Mac OS
* more (command), a shell command
* MORE protocol, a routing protocol
* Missouri Research and Education Network
Music Albums
* ''More!'' (album), by Booka S ...
'' magazine for "Most Aspirational Mail Order Catalogue" and by
Prima magazine for "Best Mail Order Brand", a title it retained the following year.
The parent company, now renamed
Otto UK, announced a restructure of the UK-based business in 2009, bringing all its home shopping brands together under the brand Freemans Grattans Holdings (FGH) and utilising the popularity of the Freemans name in the UK.
Sponsorship and celebrity endorsement
Freemans embraced the concept of celebrity endorsement and elicited the help of one of the world's first international supermodels,
Twiggy
Dame Lesley Lawson (''née'' Hornby; born 19 September 1949) is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenaged model during the swinging '60s in London.
...
, to promote the brand in the 1960s.
Pop icon
Lulu
Lulu may refer to:
Companies
* LuLu, an early automobile manufacturer
* Lulu.com, an online e-books and print self-publishing platform, distributor, and retailer
* Lulu Hypermarket, a retail chain in Asia
* Lululemon Athletica or simply Lulu, ...
began modelling for the Freemans catalogue in the 1970s and early 1980s as the brand looked to capture a boutique atmosphere but within the catalogue format. Lulu's brightness and bounce were the selling points for its young fashion. At the same time the catalogue offered Lulu the chance to promote her exclusive fashion range produced by Lenbry Fashions.
The 1970s also saw star of the BBC sitcom ''
Butterflies'',
Wendy Craig
Anne Gwendolyn "Wendy" Craig (born 20 June 1934) is an English actress who is best known for her appearances in the sitcoms ''Not in Front of the Children'', '' ...And Mother Makes Three'', '' ...And Mother Makes Five'' and ''Butterflies''. ...
, model for the catalogue company.
In the early 1980s, model and actress
Lorraine Chase
Lorraine Chase (born 16 July 1951) is an English actress and former model. She became well known for her strong south east London accent and frequent use of cockney slang, and found fame through a series of television adverts for Campari be ...
promoted the "Lorraine Chase Collection" through the Freemans catalogue. It also gave supermodel
Yasmin Le Bon
Yasmin Le Bon (née Parvaneh; born 29 October 1964) is an English model. She was one of the highest-earning models during the 1980s and is also known for being the wife of pop star Simon Le Bon.
Early life
Yasmin Parvaneh was born in Oxford, ...
one of her first major modelling campaigns in the 1980s.
TV presenter
Des Lynam
Desmond Michael Lynam, (born 17 September 1942) is an Irish-born television and radio presenter. In a broadcasting career spanning more than forty years, he has hosted television coverage of many of the world's major sporting events, presentin ...
was chosen to promote the catalogue company's leisurewear in the early 1990s, securing a five-year deal. From 2007 to 2009, television and West End star
Denise Van Outen promoted the catalogue's new "One Collection".
Other celebrities associated with the brand include British swimmer and Olympic silver medallist
Sharron Davies
Sharron Elizabeth Davies, (born 1 November 1962) is an English former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in the Olympics and European championships and competed for England in the Commonwealth Games. Davies has attended 12 ...
and Liverpool-born TV presenter
Keith Chegwin
Keith Chegwin (17 January 1957 – 11 December 2017) was an English television presenter and actor, appearing in several children's entertainment shows in the 1970s and 1980s, including '' Multi-Coloured Swap Shop'' and ''Cheggers Plays Pop''.
...
.
Freemans were shirt sponsors for local football team
Bradford City AFC from 1991 to 1993; the shirt was made by Bukta in Bradford City's traditional claret and amber colours for the home shirt and a plain white for the away strip.
The company also sponsored the Celebrity Mum of the Year Award in 2006, an award which was won by
Sharon Osbourne.
In popular culture
The Clapham Road home of Freemans of London is featured on themed tours of London as one of the top industry-related places to visit in London.
Alan Davies
Alan Roger Davies (; born 6 March 1966) is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor and TV presenter. He is best known for his portrayal of the title role in the BBC mystery drama series ''Jonathan Creek'' (1997–2016) and as the only per ...
cited the Freemans catalogue in one of the jokes at his 2012 Edinburgh stand-up show, highlighting how renowned the catalogue's history remains amongst the mainstream population.
References
External links
Freemans.com* ''Community project celebrating 40 years of Freemans' Peterborough warehouse''
{{Authority control
1905 establishments in the United Kingdom
Clapham
Clothing retailers of England
Clothing companies of England
Companies based in Bradford
Companies based in the London Borough of Wandsworth
Mail-order retailers
Retail companies established in 1905