Granville Richard Francis Tompkins (15 May 1918 – 6 December 1992) was a British print, advertising and retail entrepreneur, best known for founding the

Green Shield Stamps Green Shield Stamps was a British sales promotion scheme that rewarded shoppers with stamps that could be used to buy gifts from a catalogue or from any affiliated retailer. The scheme was introduced in 1958 by Richard Tompkins, who had no ...

company, as well as the Argos chain of catalogue stores which became one of the largest retailers in the United Kingdom, and a constituent of the

FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...

Career

Richard Tompkins was born in

Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...

, north London, and worked as an engineering draughtsman during the Second World War, before founding his first printing business in 1945. On holiday in Chicago in the 1950s, Tompkins witnessed the success of S&H Green Stamps, and on his return founded the

Green Shield Stamp Green Shield Stamps was a British sales promotion scheme that rewarded shoppers with stamps that could be used to buy gifts from a catalogue or from any affiliated retailer. The scheme was introduced in 1958 by Richard Tompkins, who had no ...

Trading Company in the United Kingdom. In 1973, he adapted the format of his Green Shield catalogue shops, used for redeeming trading stamp books, and founded Argos, a catalogue store chain that took cash. Though independent, Argos operations were closely linked to Green Shield Stamps, and Argos was sold in 1979 to

BAT Industries British American Tobacco plc (BAT) is a British multinational company that manufactures and sells cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine products. The company, established in 1902, is headquartered in London, England. As of 2019, it is the large ...

for £35 million. Tompkins died of cancer in 1992 in Westminster, a year after the stamps were withdrawn, and the same year he was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

References

1918 births 1992 deaths 20th-century British businesspeople {{UK-business-bio-1910s-stub