Clarks: Made to Last

by Mark Palmer

  The Bullmead warehouse, built in 1954, was doubled in size ten years later as a result of McKinsey & Co.’s reports and recommendations.

  Another McKinsey report came out in the summer of 1965, which was circulated to all managers. It emphasised the importance of a proper chain of command, described as ‘line-staff relationships’. Bancroft’s cover note made the point that ‘in all main aspects’ the report was as prepared by McKinsey, but, he added: ‘I have altered it only as necessary to fit into the organisation structure which we adopted at the end of May in place of the one McKinsey’s proposed.’

  England won the World Cup in 1966 (with the team’s off-field suits designed by Hardy Amies), but there was not much else to celebrate. Harold Wilson’s Labour government had been returned to power in March with a slightly increased majority of 97 and was faced with a balance of payments crisis. The pound was devalued, a wage freeze put in place and an unpopular Selective Employment Tax introduced, designed to raise money from the service sectors in order to subsidise manufacturing. James Callaghan, the chancellor of the exchequer, introduced a Corporation Tax at the rate of 40 per cent.

  Clarks was not immune to the nation’s economic troubles, which were fuelled by the growing restlessness of the trade unions. In 1966, an agreement was reached between the Shoe Manufacturers Federation and the National Shoe Trade Union to reduce the working week further from 41½ to 40 hours, while increasing holidays by seven days to 4½ weeks. This would cost Clarks an additional £250,000 a year – or an extra 5d. for each pair of shoes it made.

  In the same year, two factories were closed: St Johns in Bridgwater and Northway in Midsomer Norton. And there were redundancies in others: 22 at Minehead, 27 in Street and 51 in Plymouth. A further 150 workers lost their jobs in November across the C. & J. Clark businesses. A spokesman was quoted in the Daily Telegraph of 16 August 1966 as saying:

  We have had to cut back our plans for expansion, particularly for women’s shoes. We have taken a long and careful look at our overheads and pruned them wherever possible.

  The price of raw hides and skins for uppers was rising, but for its soles Clarks was by now using very little leather. In the 1960s, the big breakthrough in soling was the development of polyurethane (PU) compounds, which earned Clarks the respect of – and a considerable amount of money from – the wider shoe-making world. Even back in the early 1950s it had been proposed that the company should appoint a specialist organic chemist to develop PU. This never happened, but fortunately a letter towards the end of 1962 from Michael Mayer-Rieckh, a friend of Peter Clothier, and a member of the founding family of the Humanic Shoe Company in Graz, Austria, galvanised Clarks’ interest in PU soling. This letter offered an introduction to Dr Oskar Schimdt Jnr, who had developed a new process for moulding plastic soles on to normal footwear.

  A company delegation was dispatched to Austria in January 1963 to investigate the Schimdt process. Its members were impressed. Schimdt then came to Street and the company set in place a formal agreement between him and C. I. C. Engineering, which was part of Avalon Industries. But the clock was ticking, with competitors such as Bata and Wolverine launching their own concerted assaults to exploit the latest technical advances in soling.

  A Peter Lord shop interior in Stafford in the 1960s, showing the sales desk area, with fitting stools in the foreground.

  It was not until March 1969 that a prototype PU moulding machine was commissioned at the Minehead factory, but by 1972 there were Rotary or what was called In-line machines in six Clarks factories, all using C. I. C. moulds. Chemical supplies mainly came from Avalon Chemicals based in Shepton Mallet and specific compounds were developed for individual factories. At one time, twenty different compounds were being produced, each with subtle differences of colour, texture and flexibility.

  Over the next decade, huge investments were made in PU for factories specialising in casual products such as men’s polyveldt and sandals, women’s Clippers and Pop-ons and children’s hardwearing shoes for school. PU was a fundamental factor in sustaining Clarks’ image as a major player both nationally and internationally, and C. I. C. was selling its compounds to shoe manufacturers around the globe.

  The physical properties of PU soles as experienced by consumers were compelling: lightness, softness, flexibility, resilience (shock absorbency) and durability. In essence, a dream product to market. Some factories with PU machines were working two and three shifts, such was the level of demand for their products.

  Daniel Clark, Bancroft’s eldest son, became managing director of Clarks Ltd in 1967.

  Bancroft Clark – known always as ‘Mr Bancroft’ – retired in August 1967 but remained a powerful presence for another quarter century, living just long enough to see Clarks stumble through its darkest hour in 1993. His only official role in the business after standing down was as chairman of Street Estates Limited.

  Bancroft had worked in the business from 1919 to 1921 before going up to King’s College, Cambridge. After taking his degree, he rejoined the company in 1924 and then succeeded his father, Roger, as chairman in 1942. He occupied that post for 25 successive years, during which he led Clarks through a period of unprecedented growth, both at home and overseas. Comparisons with the period immediately after the war and with 1967, the year he retired, are instructive. Turnover increased from £1.3 million a year in 1946 to £40.4 million in 1967; there were 1,906 employees in 1946 and 14,398 in 1967; Clarks was making 1.4 million pairs of shoes in 1946 and 18.5 million in 1967. There were 175,000 ordinary shares in 1946, compared with more than six million in 1967.

  The retirement of Bancroft coincided with that of Arthur Halliday, whose firm in Ireland, John Halliday & Son, had joined forces with Clarks in 1937.

  These two high-level departures led to wider changes. Tony Clark became chairman of C. & J. Clark Ltd and Peter Clothier was made managing director. Daniel Clark took over as managing director of Clarks Ltd, the branded shoemaking operation, and Eric Gross was appointed managing director of both Clarks Overseas Shoes Ltd and, temporarily, of the Unbranded Division. Jan Clark, Bancroft’s second son, was promoted to the board and made responsible for C. & J. Clark Retailing.

  Following Bancroft’s retirement, the decision was taken to make Clarks Shoes Australia Ltd an independently managed subsidiary of Clarks Overseas Shoes Ltd. Foster Harrison, who had been factory manager of Alma Shoes, the Australian manufacturer bought by Clarks, was appointed the first managing director of Clarks Shoes Australia Ltd and became a member of the main C. & J. Clark board. The other directors were Stephen Clark (company secretary) and John Frith (financial controller). In 1967, the nine-man board comprised six family members and three non-family members.

  Wherever you looked there was change and expansion. Early in 1967, Clarks acquired a 51 per cent interest in Mondaine Ltd, a privately owned company which operated at the high-fashion end of the shoe market, trading under the names of Ravel, Mondaine and Pinet. Altogether, Mondaine Ltd had some 50 shops in London and the Home Counties, with a turnover of £2 million a year. Four of its stores were in Bond Street and one was in Carnaby Street. Then, less than a year later, Clarks added a Scottish shoe group called Bayne and Duckett to its portfolio, which came with 60 retail outlets in and around Glasgow and Edinburgh, including Baird’s, a well-known bootmaker.

  In 1968, Clarks acquired the Australian Shoe Corporation and opened a new factory in Melbourne, of which it owned the freehold. A year later, in 1969, a new factory was built in Adelaide expressly for the production of Hush Puppies, a casual shoe made with supple suede uppers and lightweight crepe soles. Created in 1958 by the Wolverine shoe company in Rockford, Michigan, Hush Puppies derived their name from the southern American dish of fried corn balls that were supposedly thrown to barking dogs to quieten them down.

  In New Zealand, a new children’s factory was opened at the aptly named Papatoetoe, outside Auckland; the minister of customs cut the ceremonial ribbon. A small shoe manufacturer called The Hap
py Shoe Company was bought in Ghana, making 2,000 pairs of crepe-soled sandals a week. Meanwhile, in America, there was a welcome turnaround in 1969 with the wholesaling company, Clarks of England Ltd, recording sales up by 50 per cent on the previous year. And Clarks’ position in relation to the rest of Europe was bolstered by the opening of new offices and warehouses in Denmark and Sweden, in addition to the existing ones in Paris and Zurich.

  Back home, at the beginning of 1969, Clarks bought Trefano Shoe Ltd, which specialised in comfortable women’s shoes. This company, with 371 employees, operated near Tonypandy in the Welsh Valleys and came with two big advantages: it was in a ‘designated development area’ that benefited from government grants and rebates, and the new Severn Bridge, opened by the Queen in September 1966, made access to and from Wales much easier for heavy goods vehicles.

  As Clarks expanded by opening new factories it also sought to increase the efficiency of its operations. Raising productivity and lowing costs were what occupied the minds of factory superintendents and their deputies.

  As Eric Saville, who joined Clarks as a management trainee in 1960 after studying classics at Cambridge University, explains:

  I spent a lot of my time with a stopwatch … The piecework system was central to everything. The harder you worked, the more cash value you had. It was hard work. In fact, it was the closest thing to slave labour that I ever saw.

  After completing his training, Saville became head of works study in the Grove factory in Street before moving from one plant to another as a deputy superintendent and then becoming superintendent (factory manager) of the sandals factories in Yeovil and Ilminster. As he describes it:

  I never seemed to stay anywhere long enough to feel I had achieved something. Finally, I said ‘no’ when they wanted to move me back to Street as a superintendent. Tony Clark tried to persuade me and said: ‘I thought you liked a challenge, but clearly you don’t.’ Eventually, I did what I was told, but left a few months later and joined a management consultancy firm in London. After that, I was offered jobs by other companies but came to the conclusion that I had seen nothing that I liked as much as Clarks.

  So Saville rejoined in 1970 and spent the rest of his working life at Clarks, including three years in Australia after Raymond Footwear Components was bought to make heels, soles, lasts, insoles, stiffeners, wedges and other bits and pieces vital to shoemaking.

  Saville, who retired in 1995, had nothing but admiration for Clarks:

  Clarks was light years ahead of others in terms of industrial relations … Each factory had its own factory council and would send representatives to the Company Council in Street, which met two or three times a year. This was a chance to air any grievances direct with members of the board. You could say anything you liked and would be heard.

  In 1971, there were further increases in warehouse space at Bullmead, with the provision of an additional 48,000 sq ft built on three levels. The Clarks raw material warehouse at Cowmead also underwent modernisation, and on the Houndwood site a new 10,000 sq ft maintenance garage was opened, complete with automatic car- and lorry-washing machines to service the company’s 50 trailers and 100 cars. The improvements to Houndwood cost more than £1 million.

  The fifth generation of Clarks was about to take over running the business, but cracks were beginning to appear. A drop in profits in 1972 was described by Tony Clark in his annual Chairman’s Report as ‘considerably below what we budgeted to achieve’. On sales of £94,169,000, the profit before tax was £4,875,000, down from £5,241,000 on the previous year. And the figures would have been much worse had it not been for the sale of surplus land owned by Street Estates Ltd, whose results were now incorporated into the accounts of C. & J. Clark Ltd.

  Competition in the fashion shoe sector was relentless – from Italy, Spain and, increasingly, Brazil – while, at the cheaper end, shoes were pouring into the UK from the Far East, particularly Pakistan and Malaysia. Exports to traditional markets such as Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Bermuda, Nassau, Jamaica, Trinidad and Hong Kong were just about holding up, but increases in the costs of shoemaking in the UK were starting to affect Clarks’ competitiveness and there was bad news from the Unbranded Division, which, in 1972, posted ‘disastrous’ results.

  It was time to engage the services of another firm of consultants. The Boston Consulting Group, which was based in New Zealand House, in London’s Haymarket, spent months examining various aspects of Clarks’ business, after which Tony Clark told shareholders:

  We found their reports on various aspects of the business and the opportunities that they saw for growth interesting and stimulating, and certainly helpful in our forward strategic planning.

  In truth, some of the Boston Consulting Group’s conclusions had made for uncomfortable reading. Its report warned that:

  … although Clarks Limited is an effective manufacturer of shoes in a high income country, in the context of future world supply patterns this will not be a base for future growth.

  Princess Anne on a visit to Street on 12 May 1970 to open the Street Youth Club.

  Echoing publicly what some senior members of staff were thinking privately, the Boston Consulting Group urged the company to ‘reduce its involvement in the peripheral activities that neither contribute materially to its strength nor add to its profitability’. Specifically, it described the unbranded side of the business and some of the shoe component operations as ‘unnecessary distractions’. Its recommendation under the ‘Unbranded’ heading, amounted to one word: ‘Withdraw’.

  This, apart from a small factory in Ireland which continued for a number of years making cheap, unbranded women’s fashion shoes, was achieved by the end of 1973. Wansdyke reverted to making branded shoes, London Lane was sold back to its original East End owners and A. & F. Shoes went into voluntary liquidation.

  The children’s department at the Peter Lord store in Birmingham in 1971.

  The Boston Consulting Group went on to suggest that Avalon Engineering should ‘phase out of the manufacture and sale of machines’ and wrote at length about the pros and cons of Peter Lord operating as an independent multiple. But its most telling observation, and one that would take many years for the company to act upon, addressed the core of Clarks’ business – the production of branded shoes. It stated simply: ‘Overseas sourcing for Clarks Ltd, from a low labour cost country, or on an owned basis, should be given high priority.’

  Any worrying internal reflections on Clarks’ future were, to an extent, shared by outside commentators. Prudence Glynn, a fashion writer for The Times, penned a long feature in April 1972, which began:

  I have always thought of Clarks as the Sainsbury’s of the shoe business: equally dedicated to producing best quality for the best price, vastly respectable, family dominated, paternalistic and hung about with an aura of rectitude.

  But then she went on to criticise many of the most popular ranges such as Spectrum, Trumps, Nova and Skyline, and concluded how she preferred to have Italian brands in her cupboard. She went on to say:

  I think that right across the British shoe industry there is a need for a much higher standard of design. I should really rather buy native shoes than Italian imports, gentlemen. In the meantime, Clarks gesture to more interesting fashion is very welcome. It is definitely the moment for the carrot, I feel, not the stick.

  Peter Clothier, one of those who had striven to make Clarks more fashionable and more appealing to younger consumers, retired in 1973 at the age of 63 and was replaced as vice chairman and managing director by Daniel Clark, Bancroft’s oldest son. Clothier had joined the company in 1927 and became a towering figure not just in Clarks but in the wider shoe world, serving as president of the British Footwear Manufacturers Federation and gaining a reputation for his informed lectures on the shoe trade. A special issue of the Courier was produced to mark his retirement, including a personal tribute from Bancroft and a long summary of his career by Tony Clark, his friend and colleague of more than 40 years. Cl
othier, whose two sons, Anthony and John, joined Clarks in the 1960s, said in a farewell message:

  We have to be aggressive and ingenious in creating new products and new wants, and bring these to the public – never forgetting that the customer is the master we must satisfy.

  The customer – and the public at large – was given a chance to explore some of Clarks’ history when the Shoe Museum opened in Street on 14 March 1974. There had formerly been a museum of sorts, housed in Crispin Hall on the High Street, and not everyone was keen that space should be found for a new one in the main headquarters building. Stephen Clark was firmly in favour and he was largely responsible for overseeing the museum, drawing upon the archives and making sure that a collection of fossils of ichthyosauruses (extinct marine animals) and a fine selection of stuffed birds were brought safely to their new home, along with shoes dating back hundreds of years. The museum remains today in its prominent place – though the fossils have moved on – and in 2011 was the subject of a news item on BBC Breakfast when a group of Chinese tourists included it in their itinerary of Britain, moving seamlessly from the Tower of London to Stonehenge to Street. The archives were relocated to a new purpose-built site in 2012 and are one of the most extensive and well-organised of any company in Britain if not the world.

  Peter Clothier, a grandson of William S. Clark, worked at Clarks for nearly sixty years, culminating in six years as managing director between 1967 and 1973.