The cheap-as-chips clothing empire, Ethel Austin, was founded in 1934 by mother of three Ethel Austin and her husband George. They set up shop in the front room of their terraced house at 2A Bishop Road, Anfield, Liverpool 6, where she began selling wool and helping neighbours with their knitting. She and husband George had benefited from a windfall in the form of a matured insurance policy worth £50 so they decided to put the money into starting up a knitting shop in their front room, where Ethel would sell skeins of wool and rescue customers' dropped stitches or advise where they had become tangled up with knit-and-purl. They posted leaflets locally which said, 'Bring your knitting problems to Ethel Austin'.
When Ethel and George opened their first shop, in Liverpool's Walton Village, and in 1936 the first day's profit was nine shillings and one pence (47p). The company's 309 stores would eventually ring up half a million in their cash tills every day.
The canny couple had also factored in the shop's proximity to the trams, on which George worked as a conductor. Customers could drop off their wonky knitting on the way into town, returning by tram to collect Ethel's neat handiwork and buy the yarns that she recommended would make a new sweater or woolly hat. The trams also came in handy when it came to keeping Ethel's shop fully stocked as George would deliver parcels of wool to the shop en route on the trams he worked.
Within three years, the Austins opened two more shops, which were also situated handily close to tram stops. In 1939, their eldest son Ronald, aged 17, left his job at the Co-op to work as a full-time manager of his parents' three stores which in itself was unusual as it was the era of the Department Stores. Ronald began to introduce clothing to the shops' stock of knitting wool and patterns and, after he returned from the RAF at the end of the Second World War, opened a fourth shop, bringing the family's fortune to £11,000 in sales by the end of that year.
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| The first Warehouse |
As the family business grew, the Austins made sure that their employees enjoyed a share of its profits and in 1957 launched a scheme in which a quarter of the firm's annual takings were divvied up among its workers. George was respected by staff for his willingness to 'muck in' when a job needed doing. Ronald, meanwhile, wasn't the most dynamic businessman in the world, preferring to 'put one foot in front of the other' and open shops at a slow but steady pace. He established each new store with the determination that Ethel Austin stores would be the cheapest place to buy your undies, 'bar none', as he would go into rival shops to check prices. Cheap didn't mean poor quality either, everything had to wash and wear well as Ronald was mindful of his customers' purse strings. He didn't allow the company to accept credit cards either as he didn't like the thought of tempting people to buy beyond their means. Ethel retired from playing an active part in the business in the mid-Fifties but enjoyed attending the company's functions and Christmas parties, where she was always regarded as the star.
Five hundred guests turned up to celebrate the business's 50th anniversary with Ethel, George and Ronald in 1984. George died a few years later in his 90s and Ethel died in 1989, aged 88. During their lifetimes, their business had grown from a front room in a terrace to a nationwide chain of 'local' shops making millions of pounds.
Ronald worked until he was 76 before he became ill and died two years later in 2000, the year that the 200th Ethel Austin shop opened. Two years later the Austin family sold their shops but the company ceased operation in January 2013, after numerous times entering administration.. Clever Ronald had also invested in property for years, buying the leases of many of the retail sites on which he established Ethel Austin stores.
see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/01/a-liverpool-exemplar-john-samuel-swire.html
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