Barrow Hepburn & Gale

Barrow Hepburn & Gale was founded in 1760 under the name of Hepburn and Sons by John Hepburn, after having moved to Bermondsey from Chesham and there opened a tannery. There are records of the Hepburn family working from Long Lane in Bermondsey throughout the 19th century, eventually coming work with the Gales in both Deptford and Bermondsey. Samuel Barrow, originally working as a tanner himself, from 1848 set up his own company, Samuel Barrow and Brother, based in the Grange. In 1901 there was the merger of Hepburn and Gale with Ross and Co., another leather company from the 17th century, which possessed the rights to manufacture ministerial boxes for the government. Over time, the company became a larger supplier to the British Army – for items such as saddles and bayonet scabbards – especially during WW1, but also in the Boer and Crimean Wars.[4]

Through a series of mergers, Barrow Hepburn and Gale came to be "the largest leather concern in Bermondsey in the 20th century",[5] with Hepburn and Gale merging with Ross and Co. in 1901. Ross and Co., another tanning company dating to the 18th century, possessed rights to manufacture ministerial boxes for the government – the famous dispatch boxes with which Barrow Hepburn and Gale would come to be associated.

In 1920, Hepburn, Gale, and Ross merged again with Samuel Barrow and Brother, by this time having become a very successful company, manufacturing a broader range of leather goods and expanding its operations to encompass the production of glue, gelatine and rubber. A number of other mergers followed, such as to Blackman's Leather Goods Company, which supplied baby harnesses to the Duchess of Kent and to Princess Juliana of the Netherlands,[4] resulting in an ever growing company. Eventually, with the acquisition of Thomas Holmes and Son in 1935, it achieved the position of producing a twelfth of the total sole leather of the country.[4]

In the Second World War, the company aided the British war effort as they had done in the First World War, producing leather goods for the government. The tanneries at the Grange in Bermondsey were destroyed during the Blitz. George Odey, the director of Barrow Hepburn and Gale since 1933, would be appointed a CBE for his company's contributions.[6]

In 1967, there was a collapse in the world leather market, due in part to the demand for material caused by the Vietnam war. Price of "notes on the accounts [...] show that for the same amount of leather production the hide cost rose from approximately from £2.9m in 1964 to £3.3m in 1965 and finally to £4.2m in 1966".[7] However, Barrow Hepburn and Gale remained successful despite the slump in the 1960s, seeing a turnover of £22.5 million in 1967, a year that saw a crash in the UK leather industry. The chairman, Richard Odey, took the opportunity to expand and sought to buy up as great a share of the shrinking market as possible.