Activities in Findlaters Sackville Street
Vatting and bottling in the Whiskey House
The Grocery Department
Loading outside Sackville Street
Beer bottling in the cellars
5. Great-Grandfather John,
Head of Findlaters 1873‒1908
Shopping should always be done by the mistress herself. It is extremely unwise to send servants with money to buy what is required, as, however honest they may be, a temptation to pilfer is put in their way which a mistress has no right to subject them to. A good housekeeper will never run short of anything, and so will have no occasion to send off in a hurry at the last minute to try and obtain what should have been ready to hand. A strict account of all money spent each week should be kept by all housekeepers who wish to attain efficiency and economy, and those who have never done so will be surprised how many entries are made, and how the most trifling expenditures amount very quickly to large sums. (Findlater’s Ladies’ Housekeeping Book for 1890)
Great-grandfather John was forty-five when he inherited the Dublinbased organisation, with their headquarters in Sackville Street. He had been in the business since he was fourteen. But as with other members of the family, his education could have been on-going. There is no record of his schooling but cash transfers suggest that part was in Belfast. The Sackville Street operation was only part of Alexander’s empire, but was to be the mainstay of the Findlater family business for the next century.
Smells and aromas
It was in this era that Findlaters became part of the everyday life of the citizens of Dublin. When asked to recall old Findlaters many start with the wonderful array of smells and aromas. This can be attributed to the great variety of produce being handled and processed, as one scribe put it:
great wines of the world arriving in cask and leaving years later matured to perfection; barrels of over-proof whiskey maturing in bond, before blending and despatch to the nation’s licensees; porter, stout and ale, kegs by the dray load, from Mountjoy, Bass and Guinness, awaiting bottling by hand, maturing, (yes, beer), before distribution to the city’s enormous and thirsty workforce; sacks of rice, barley, oats and semolina in the ‘Lofts’ where Barney with his needle and bodkin, repairs the holes made by a meandering mouse over night; piping hot cakes and scones, crisp from our own Bakery up in Thomas Street and Bread by the van load, horse-drawn of course, brown and unwrapped from our cousins, the Johnston’s, of JM&O’B in Balls Bridge; boxes of raisins, sultanas and cherries; sacks of brown sugar; all-spice and mixed spice, all ready for weighing into brown Kraft bags, by the stone, by the pound or by the ounce at customer command; freshly roasted coffee; smoked bacon, eggs, butter, potatoes and cabbages all fresh from the farms of Dublin, Wicklow, Meath and Kildare. And last
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but not least, to add to the aromas are those fine dray horses, tired but fit, after a day of good service in a city bustling with activity, safely stabled around the corner, in Findlater Place.’
By the time he became senior partner, John had worked in the firm for some thirty years. In 1854 he married Mary Johnston of the milling and baking family that was to become part of Johnston, Mooney & O’Brien whose sister Jane was married to his Uncle Adam. She was the fourth daughter of John Johnston of Ballsbridge. John and Mary were to have a large family—nine sons and two daughters.
Household expenditure 1854-1862
Remembered in the family as ‘a nice old gentleman, who sat on the top of the tram, and always had sweets in his pocket for the children’, John was small and dapper. He was also clearly meticulous and conscientious. (His handwriting is wonderfully clear.) From his reading matter we can deduce that he identified with his ancestral homeland of Scotland, and with the union. He was a pious Presbyterian, regularly attending sermons and giving donations to various churches and Protestant charities. On the other hand he was not puritanical—he bought playing cards and whiskey, went to the theatre and the pantomime, and subscribed to Punch. All these details are decipherable from the detailed cash book that he kept in the early years of his marriage, in which he recorded all his personal expenses.
At the start of the cash book, John was earning a modest salary of £200 a year [equivalent to €19,000 after tax], but on his marriage in 1854 he was made a junior partner with a small share in the profits and his income jumped to £471 [€43,000 after tax]. In the ‘personal’ category of the cash book he records the purchase of toothbrushes (two for himself, one for his wife, in the normal order) collar studs and haircuts, and under ‘sundry’ his presents (‘jet bracelet to wife 22s 6d’), entertainments (‘season ticket Royal Hibernian Academy 2s 6d’) and holidays (‘rent of cottage at Kingstown 15 May to 30 Sept £23 10s’). The early pages record John’s share of the costs of getting married—Mary’s family would of course have paid for the wedding. Here is ‘1 plain gold ring, with guard 14s 6d’ [€71]; a marriage licence 6s [€29] and numerous white kid gloves from Todd Burns £8 5s [€380]–the great drapery emporium in which his uncle Alexander was a partner. Then there is a payment to his cousin Billy the solicitor for preparing the marriage settlement (£2 3s 8d) [€100], various presents to the bridesmaids and others, wedding cards £3 16s 6d, hire of carriages on the big day £1 5s 6d [€119], expenses of the wedding tour 20 April to 5 May £40 [€3,800] (plus 10d for ‘key to carpet bag’, and 8s 6d for a copy of Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy* to while away the tedious hours of travel).
* Martin Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy was rather unkindly described in the Oxford Companion to English Literature as ‘presenting maxims and reflections couched in vaguely rhythmical form . . . the favourite of millions who knew nothing about poetry. It remained a best-seller in Britain and America for more than a generation.’
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Findlater’s Corner, 28‒32 Upper O’Connell Street, 1835‒1969
84 and 85 Lower George’s Street, Dun Laoghaire, 1830‒1969
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On their return the newly married couple faced the task of setting up home. They started in 20 Eglinton Terrace, Seville Place (rent £42 pa) [€4,000] and moved to Anna Ville, Upper Leeson Street in 1858 (rent £52 pa) [€5,200] and then again to Wellington Place, also off Leeson Street, in 1862 (rent £70 pa) [€6,700]. Typically of the time, they rented rather than bought, and spent only a year or two in each house. Just over 7 per cent of his expenditure went in rent.
Typically of the time, they rented rather than bought, and spent only a year or two in each house. Just over 7 per cent of his expenditure went in rent. John and Mary now started to invest in furniture. They found a sofa to their liking, for seven guineas [€710]; ‘1 mahogany Albert bed £9 15s’ [about €1,000], and ‘1 spring mattress £6 15s’ [€600]; a set of dining room chairs (‘12 balloon back chairs £15’ [€1,400]), and a ‘rosewood loo table, ten guineas’ [€1,000].
I am always interested in my ancestors’ drinking preferences. John tended to drink spirits, especially whiskey, and fortified wines such as port and sherry. (This was normal of the time, fortified wines representing more than half of total wine consumption.) In March 1855, for instance, he bought a dozen pints of claret, 1½ doz. sherry and 1½ doz. port, plus two bottles of whiskey and a ‘flask’ each of Geneva, London gin and rum. He bought two gallons of ‘Best Irish’ in May, and then nothing more until November, when he bought 2½ dozen pints of beer, from Findlaters of course, with six bottles of whiskey and three bottles of port—all quite modest in comparison to his uncle’s household, but then he was only twenty-seven at the time.
As well as the housekeeping, John gave Mrs Findlater—as he refers to Mary in his ledgers—an allowance for her personal expenses and those of the children. At first this was quite modest, a mere £15 [€1,400], but as the family prospered, it crept up, becoming £40 [€4,000] a year in 1859 and 1860, and jumping to £50 {£3,000] in 1861 and £65 [almost €6,000] in 1862. Although Mary’s allowance represented the annual wage of a skilled man by 1861, it is likely that this was not the whole of her income. A later cash book (from the 1880s) records her receiving half-yearly dividend income of £80 [over €8,000] from a trust fund.
John’s expenditure on books and magazines (and later prints), on the garden and on a wide range of entertainments and ‘treats’ is interesting. In 1855, for example, he subscribed to Saunders Newsletter, to the Illustrated London News, the Advocate, and he bought a pictorial bible, and Chambers’ History of the Russian War, the Christian Treasury for 1855, and Marriage–Why so Often Unhappy. A keen gardener, he bought various bits of garden equipment, and splashed out three guineas [€300] for a man to help him restructure the fences to his satisfaction. He went to the opera (2s [€10], including car hire), the theatre and the pantomime, attended psalmody classes at Zion Chapel, Kings Inn Street, and bought a pack of playing cards (1s [€5]) and ‘4 cigars for use of friends’ (also 1s).
The following year he spent a further £6 (equivalent to nearly £400 in current terms) on his garden, and later a copy of Joseph Paxton’s Cottager’s Calendar of Gardening Operations. He bought more books, continuing Chambers History of the Russian War and the 1856 edition of the Christian Treasury. With his first child just born, he bought a copy of The Home School, or Hints on Home
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Education, and a copy of Johnson’s dictionary; also a cheap reprint of Susan Ferrier’s novel The Inheritance,* originally published in 1824. He subscribed to The Economist, and rented a cottage in Kingstown for the summer months. This cost him £23 [€2,190] for 4½ months. Presumably Mary and the children retreated there. From 1858 he started to fill the house with prints. He became a keen subscriber to art unions in Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh.†
As time went on his reading tastes broadened: he took in Punch, which at this period was notably anti-Catholic and anti-Irish^an entertaining, topical and humorous publication but hardly reflecting his own views as a successful liberal businessman in a Catholic country. He bought Shirley by Jane Eyre, and Griffin’s The Rivals. In August 1858 he and Caroline Johnston (his sister-in-law) went to hear Charles Dickens read The Christmas Carol ‡ (he was a regular subscriber to Dickens’ newspaper Household Words). In the same month he bought Caroline a ‘steel petticoat’ for 10s [€50]. (This oddly intimate present is a crinoline, a fashion introduced by Princess Eugenie in Paris in 1856 to conceal the signs of pregnancy, or so it is said.)
In 1856 John bought a book called The Scriptural Duty of Giving a Stated Portion of Income to Charitable Purposes. Whether by coincidence or not, for his personal circumstances did become easier at this time, from 1857 he began a regular programme of charitable donations. Over the eight years of the cash book, John gave away 18 per cent of his expenditure to charity and worthy causes. He gave in small sums, and often, unlike his Uncle Alexander who tended to give large donations to a few recipients but his uncle was then head of the family and considerably wealthier; however, John’s time would come.
In a typical year, for instance, John made over a hundred separate payments totalling £146 [€14,000].§ In 1857 he gave £3 each to two advertisers in Saunders Newsletter—a ‘respectable family in great distress’, and ‘a gentleman in bad health with a wife and six children’. There were numerous church-related subscriptions: to the Young Men’s Christian Association, to the Presbyterian congregation in Clonakilty, to building the new Presbyterian church at Rathgar (£10—his uncles also subscribed), to Bray Presbyterian church, to the Dublin City Mission, to the annual sermon at the Scots church at Kingstown, and the Adelaide Road church, to the Protestant Orphan Society, to the collection at Sandymount church towards the General Assembly’s Foreign Mission, to the ‘Home Mission’, to the Jewish Mission and to the Roman Catholic Mission, to paying the debts of the Presbyterian church Ormond Quay, and towards the rent of the Gloucester Street church, where two of his children were baptised. Other payments included a donation ‘per Miss Duffy towards sufferers by accident in
* Described by The Oxford Companion to English Literature as having ‘an improbably complex plot told with much good humour’.
† Subscribers to an art union entered a lottery for a named painting—the successful one got the painting itself, all the others got a print. Subscriptions were one guinea per share.
‡ Dublin was the first stop on Dickens’ first provincial tour with his readings.
§ Although £1, a typical payment, does not now seem much, we should remember that it is equivalent to almost £60 in modern purchasing power.
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Christmas circular and price list 1881
‘ Can’t catch me’ 1888
‘Wild roses’, after a painting
by Fred Morgan
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889
‘Grandfather’s birthday’ 1891
Calendars
given to customers with the compliments of
Findlaters. Artist probably: Arthur John Elsley
1861-1952, in the style of Pears Soap's Bubbles
by John Everett Millias.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
‘First swan’ 1892
‘Little Miss Vanity’ 1894
Baggot Street’, to the Adelaide Hospital, the Hospital for Incurables, the Coombe, the City of Dublin Hospital and Whitworth Hospital.
Of the sons of their marriage, six survived into adulthood, all characters, and are subjects of chapters in this book. As they grew, John required a sizeable residence for this lively lot and, in 1866, the family became the first occupants of Clyde House in Clyde Road. This was in easy reach of The High School at the top of Harcourt Street and Trinity College where the boys were educated. His neighbours in the newly-built road included: Robert Gardner, John B. Johnston, William Henry Bewley, the Italian Consul and several members of the legal profession.
In later years John, as senior partner in the firm, became increasingly wealthy, and his personal expenditure and his donations to charity went up. In 1873, on the death of his uncle Alexander, he moved into his Uncle Adam’s house, Melbeach in Monkstown, Adam having moved into Alexander’s house, The Slopes. John now kept a stable, with a number of carriages, including a splendid brougham brought over especially from England. Among his other conveyances at Melbeach were a landau, a Victoria, a barouche, a hooded gig and an outside car. There were three horses in the stables.
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Jennie Johnston who
married
Robert Gardner in 1880
They lived for a time (1897 to 1905) in Montrose, Donnybrook, now the headquarters of RTE. Montrose had been built in about 1836 for John Jameson, the distiller. The Findlaters were frequent visitors to the Inglis’, thinking nothing of making the journey on foot from Blackrock along the unlit and spooky roads.
Malcolm’s youngest son Claud, a civil engineer, became director of the Indian Waterways Experimental Station in Poona, India and was knighted for his pioneering works on tides, currents, rivers and harbours. He became the first director and head of research at the experimental station, Howbery Park in Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Another son, Malcolm, married Vera Blood (daughter of John Redmond Blood, who ran the brewery).* My aunts, Doris and Sheila, were good friends of Claud and Vera and used to stay with them in Oxfordshire, and they with Doris and Sheila in Glensavage, Blackrock. Claud and Vera had one son, Brian, the broadcaster, journalist and author of West Briton and Downstart and numerous other books.1 His difficulties with my father Dermot are noted in Chapter 13.
Mrs Jury, who had bought Clyde House from John and Mary in 1873, sold it to John B. Johnston,† whose daughter Jane, known as Jennie, married, in 1880, the accountant and co-founder of Craig Gardner, one Robert Gardner of Ashley,
* He had a brother Johnston Inglis, known as Johnsie, who was an artist and settled in America. I have a painting of his, of the eel weir at Lareen, the fishing lodge in County Roscommon where they holidayed in the West of Ireland.
† And if that’s not enough on Johnstons, John Findlater’s cousin Sophia’s third marriage was to a Francis Johnston on 31 July 1877. Talk of approved families, three Johnstons to three Findlaters!
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Clyde Road, Ballsbridge. This was Robert’s second marriage and there was a marriage settlement, the trustees being John and his eldest son, Adam. The original settlement document, still preserved in our archives, included £2,000 [€210,000] Russian bonds, £1,500 [almost £100,000] stock of Eastern Telegraph Company, $9,000 New York Central Railway Currency bonds and stock in the Mexican Railway Company. Robert Gardner bought Ashley for £3,000 [almost €300,000] in 1878 at a time when his average earnings (after tax) from the accountancy firm were £3,000 a year. Not so bad! These connections were turned to good use when Robert’s wife Jennie inherited a share in the Johnston milling and bakery business in 1883 on the death of her father John Brown Johnston.
J. Johnston & Co. in Leinster Street which became the sixth Findlater branch in 1893
In 1889 John Findlater and Robert Gardner brought together William O’Brien, baker, of Ailesbury House, Merrion, with his brother Joseph, and John Mooney, miller and baker, of 42 Elgin Road, Ballsbridge to form the well-known firm of Johnston, Mooney & O’Brien. The first directors were: John Findlater (chairman), Robert Gardner, John Mooney (managing director with a salary of £1,200 [€130,000]), Joseph and William O’Brien, Joseph Todhunter Pim (a member of the Quaker business family and Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ireland) and John Malcolm Inglis (a few years later another Pim, Frederick W., became one of the first directors of Thomas Heiton & Co. when it was incorporated in 1896).
There is, as it happens, no direct connection with our Johnstons and the family of Francis Johnston (1761–1829), one of Ireland’s most celebrated architects and founder of the Royal Hibernian Academy, who died without issue. That branch of the Johnstons was also of Scottish descent, a William Johnston having been sent to Ireland by the government as an engineer or architect to re-build public works after the 1641 rebellion, and settled in Armagh. It was descendants of the Armagh Johnstons who became wine negoçiants in Bordeaux from 1734 and are now celebrated, with the Bartons and others, as the wine geese. During John Findlater’s stewardship of Findlaters (1873–1908) wine was purchased from Nathaniel Johnston & Fils, Quai des Chartons, Bordeaux, still to this day under
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The great wines of Bordeaux were shipped in casks and bottled in our Sackville Street cellars
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Johnston ownership. Barton wines, principally Château Léoville Barton, have been on Findlater lists since the early days of the company—the Bartons of Enniskillen, Tipperary and later Straffan were negoçiants in Bordeaux since 1725 and are there to this day.
There was a Johnston & Co. wine shop in Dublin at 9 Leinster Street, trading as ‘Grocers, Tea Merchants, Wine & Spirits and Bottlers of Dublin Whiskey’. It was established in 1868 and achieved a high reputation for the quality of their Dublin bottled whiskey, and commanded a large trade all over Ireland and in England and Scotland. The publicity states that the firm only dealt in John Jameson & Sons Old Dublin Whiskey. This shop belonged to the Ballsbridge Johnstons and became Findlaters’ sixth branch shop in 1893, trading as Findlaters until 1967. (William O’Brien, the baker—later of Johnston Mooney & O’Brien—occupied Nos. 7 and 8 and the rere of 6 and 9 Leinster Street, all beside Findlaters at No. 8.)
Four years after becoming senior partner, John, Mary and their twenty-two yearold eldest son Adam visited Bordeaux on a trip to the continent. He obviously intended to enjoy the holiday, since he took with him ‘probable expenses of trip to continent £150 [€20,000]’. Later in October he required further funds, and received £50 ‘remitted self to Rotterdam, further costs of trip with Mrs JF and Adam junr’ as he recorded in his cash book.
Adam junr’ as he recorded in his cash book. In October he wrote home, vividly describing conditions in the Bordeaux vineyards of the day:
Hotel de Nantes
Bordeaux, October 5 1877
We started for Bordeaux that evening at 8 o’clock. Our intention had been to have stopped at Tours and so break the length of the journey, but as the night was pleasant we travelled on and reached Bordeaux early the next morning. Having refreshed ourselves by a bath and breakfast, we strolled through the town and called on our friends. They were, of course, anxious to pay us all the attention in their power and in the afternoon we took a drive through the town, under the guidance of Mr Calvet’s representative Mors Visquis (pronounced Whiskey). The town itself is uninteresting, the only objects worth a visit being the Cathedral (Gothic, reminding me somewhat of St Ouen, Rouen), the theatre which until the building of the Grand Opera House Paris, was considered the finest and most convenient in France.
. . . Next day the business of our visit was commenced and we set ourselves in earnest to learn all we could about claret and the claret districts. Bordeaux as your geography will tell you is situated on the Garonne and the claret districts extend along the right bank of the estuary, almost to the sea, with an average width of several miles. The land is level and uninteresting as regards scenery and almost without trees of any kind except a few formal poplars ranged in lines as so many soldiers. We started early in the morning by train and in a quarter of an hour or so began to get into the midst of the vineyards. We arrived at St Estèphe which is the farthest distant of the important
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districts in about an hour and a half, where a carriage and horses were waiting for us.
Hotel de la Poste
Angouleme, Octr. 9, ’77
In this district the vines are planted in long lines and are tied to wires that stretch along from end to end of the vineyards at about a height of three feet to three feet six. At the top most of the foliage is located, any lower down being removed to allow the sun to fully ripen the grapes. These generally cluster where the new wood springs from the old stump of the vine which is about 18 inches high. The vines are esteemed better the older they are and reach sometimes sixty to one hundred years of age.
In comparison with our English hothouse vines the quality of the grape for eating purposes is poor, the skin being thick and the juice having little flavour. The quantity on each vine is also small, ranging usually from 3 to 6 poor sized bunches of berries about the size of a sixpence. But in grapes as in everything else one must not judge by appearances, the poorer grapes very often making the best wine. In a similar manner, with regard to the soil, that of some of the finest vineyards being full of round shingle and so dry and dusty in form, and hard and unyielding in others that to the uninitiated it would appear fit for nothing.
The roads in this, the Medoc district, from whence nearly all the high-class wines come, have no fence of any kind and any passer-by can pluck the grapes. That is, of course, if he is not seen. Having now to some extent given you a description of the country I will endeavour to give you some idea of the mode of making the wine. This is as primitive as possible, being that which is transmitted from father to son from generation to generation. This was strikingly shown by Baron Sarget, the owner of Chau. Larose, one of the largest and highest class of the vineyards, who to our query of why he did not use machinery for certain operations, replied that ‘the wine was good in his father’s time and that this was the way his father taught him to make it’.
To commence at the beginning, the plucking or gathering of the grapes of course comes first. This is generally performed by boys and women who collect the bunches in small baskets. When these are filled a man comes round with a large flat tub on his back to collect from the gatherers. This tub is again emptied into big tubs which stand on a cart ready for carriage to the wine presses. These carts are drawn by two bullocks and have large wheels. They are very narrow and long and are constructed to carry three tubs of grapes, which I would say is about half a ton. The oxen are enormous powerful animals and altho’ extremely slow are able to draw a much greater weight than horses. They are particularly suitable for the vineyards where horses, on account of the uneven ground, would likely ‘baulk’.
The grapes are then forwarded to the places where they make the wine which I shall describe. The building of which I speak and take as typical of the class is that Chau. Pomys, one of the fifth growths of the St Estèphe district. As a rule the systems followed differ but little from each other, altho’ some have a slightly more modern appearance. Imagine a long building of say twenty feet wide, on one side half a dozen vats, each containing say 400 gallons each, on the other half a dozen windows opening about 3½ feet from the ground. These are the openings through which the grapes are
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
delivered. Ready to catch the grapes are large wooden troughs or rather one large wooden trough divided, extending the whole length of the building.
This is constructed of large beams of about six inches in thickness. The first operation is to separate the grapes from the stalks which is done by rubbing the grapes over a sieve of a perforated piece of zinc by the hands or a rake until the grapes have fallen through and only the stalks remain. When the trough is sufficiently full of separated grapes the sieve is removed and the process of trampling is commenced.
I should have said before that the building is full of vintagers in the usual picturesque garb of the country. To them the Vintage is a time of feasting and revelry and altho’ there is plenty of hard work they make up for it by hard eating at the expense of the proprietor of the farm. These men, having removed their boots, and I need hardly say taking little heed of the state of their feet, jump into the trough and having heaped the grapes into the centre and having formed themselves into a circle, commence trampling the grapes, keeping step with the sound of a fiddle.
The juice of the grapes escapes through a hole in the side of the trough into a tub ready for it, and from thence is conveyed in long shaped tubs with a pole through them, into the vats on the other side of the room. When the grapes are sufficiently trampled, they are also conveyed in a similar manner to the same vats. This is then allowed to remain for some time on the vats until it has gone through the fermenting process and is then wine—although it has still to go through many purifying processes, such as racking, fining, etc. etc. The skins, stones etc. after the fermentation rise to the tops of the vats and separate from the wine and then the vat is run off into hogheads. They are left behind to be squeezed in the press for whatever may be in it, but this is not considered so good and is not mixed with the more natural wine.
Unfortunately the balance of the correspondence has not survived. John’s cash books make it clear, however, that the extravagance continued. In Paris he spent the equivalent of over £20,000 on various pieces of statuary and a pair of Sèvres vases. Back in London he again indulged his wife and bought ‘Mrs JF’ a diamond ring for £80 [€8,000] and a pair of ear-rings for £155; also more statues and another pair of Sèvres vases.
The Vartry Waterworks Banquet 1892
A 19th Century Spanish Port wine, but I can’t find any evidence that we ever sold it.
accompanying luncheon and refreshments. On appeal, the Queen’s Bench Division affirmed the auditor’s decision. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord O’Brien, concentrated on the day’s arrangements, in particular those made for the lunch:
I now come to deal with the expenditure in respect of the lunch. This is the most interesting item with which we have to deal . . . I have before me the items in the bill. Amongst the list of wines are two dozen champagne, Ayala, 1885—a very good brand—at 84s. a dozen; one dozen Marcobrunn hock—a very nice hock; one dozen Château Margaux—an excellent claret; one dozen fine old Dublin whiskey—the best whiskey that can be got; one case of Ayala; six bottles of Amontillado sherry—a stimulating sherry; and the ninth item is some more fine Dublin whiskey! Then Mr Lovell supplies the ‘dinner’ (this was a dinner, not a mere luncheon!) including all attendance, at 10s. per head [€60]. There is an allowance for brakes; one box of cigars, 100; coachmen’s dinner; beer, stout, minerals in syphons, and ice for wine. There is dessert, and there are sandwiches, and an allowance for four glasses broken– a very small number broken under the circumstances.
In sober earnestness, what was this luncheon and outing? It seems to me to have been a picnic on an expensive scale. What authority is there for it? No statutable authority exists. By what principle of our common law is it sustainable? By none that I can see . . . this is a question of providing a sumptuous repast for the members of the Corporation in the Wicklow Hills. It is not certainly
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
for the benefit of the property of the Corporation, or of the ratepaying citizens of Dublin, that the members of the Corporation should lunch sumptuously. I asked for statute or for case, but neither was cited.
The Solicitor-General in his most able argument—I have always to guard myself against his plausibility—appealed pathetically to com-
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mon sense; he asked, really with tears in his voice, whether the members of the Corporation should starve; he drew a most gruesome picture; he represented that the members of the Corporation would really traverse the Wicklow Hills in a spectral condition, unless they were sustained by lunch. I do not know, whether he went so far as Ayala, Marcobrunn, Château Margaux, old Dublin whiskey and cigars. In answer to the pathetic appeal of the Solicitor-General, we do not say that the members of the Corporation are not to lunch. But we do say that they are not to do so at the expense of the citizens of Dublin. They cannot banquet at their expense in the Mansion House, and, in our opinion, they cannot lunch at their expense in Wicklow.
The Ladies’ Housekeeping Book, which was first published in 1890, enables us to see another side to the story. It was published for us by Crawford Hartnell of Wilson Hartnell and Co. of the Commercial Buildings, Dame Street, Dublin who also ‘conducted’ our monthly magazine The Lady of the House. The book was bound in terracotta cloth and ran to some 100 pages of text plus a week to view diary. It was liberally supported by advertisers, some in colour. The Dublin Daily Express in 1896 described it as a ‘most practical and excellent publication’.
It contained a full set of housekeeping accounts and a diary with each page interbound with blotting-paper. There were articles on the details of Victorian living, including food and cookery, household management, home dressmaking (illustrated), decorative arts, house furnishing, domestic medicine, nursery notes, the laundry, gardening for ladies and a host of other useful topics. It was certainly full of advice, though one wonders how many of the readers really lived in such style! It forms a fascinating insight into the aspirations (if not necessarily the realities) of the rising professional and merchant class.
Attention to Detail is of the utmost importance. No mistress can hope to have her house in order, her servants under command, her wishes promptly attended to, and yet leave herself plenty of time for the prosecution of the social duties which is demanded by society of the present day. The house must be conducted like a business— with the same order and regularity that is observed in her husband’s study, office or factory. The successful wife and housekeeper is the one who, had circumstances demanded it, would have made a fortune as a manufacturer or a name as an inventor.
The Engagement of Servants requires an amount of tact and hence the frequent dismissals which afford so large a fund for conversation. It is necessary not only to satisfy oneself that the person about to be engaged holds credentials from his or her last mistress, wholly satisfactory with respect to honesty, sobriety, and cleanliness, but the thought–‘Is this person suitable for my situation,’ should be uppermost in the mistress’ mind. It is more than usually imperative that a round worker should not be put into a square hole in the matter of household servants.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Our Attitude towards Servants requires also a word. The mistress who at one time verges almost upon familiarity in her conversations with her servants, is almost as bad as the one who habitually treats all dependants with the disdain which one would hardly have for a beggar. Both these modes are the fruit of ill breeding, and we subject ourselves to unnecessary and frequent discomfort by adopting either the one or the other. The mistress who wishes to command respect, will observe towards her dependants an easy, kind, but even temper upon all occasions.
The Duties of a Cook should be carefully indicated at the outset, so that both mistress and servant will be agreed as to the duties for which the one is hired and the other is hiring. The time of rising having been decided upon, a cook should be expected to prepare the kitchen for the cooking of breakfast. (If there is a scullery maid, of course much of this would be done by her.) She should then make the front door of the house, the steps and immediate approaches clean for the day, the hall and the doors leading into the various rooms should receive attention, the hall furniture be carefully dusted, and the mats, curtains and carpets shaken. By this time breakfast should be prepared, while that meal is in progress (the servants’ breakfast all being cleared away) she should visit the larder, put all in order, and make a list of anything likely to be wanted. The mistress having made her morning visit, such cooking as can be done, without immediate connection with a meal, should be taken in hand. All utensils should be cleaned immediately after using. They are then ready when next required, and do not take so much cleaning as when left for some time. Lunch having been prepared, cook will be at liberty to clean up her kitchen, put all in order, and, having dressed herself for the afternoon, she may do sewing until afternoon tea is required, or until it is time to prepare dinner.
Housemaids and Parlourmaids are expected to prepare the sitting rooms, breakfastroom, dining room, library, etc. for the reception of the family. The staircase, too, must be carefully cleaned before anyone leaves the bedrooms. If anyone desires hot water the housemaid should take care to provide it. As soon as cook announces the breakfast to be ready, it should be placed upon the table and the gong sounded. The housemaid should then proceed to the bedrooms, while the parlourmaid remains to attend to the family at breakfast. The general cleaning of the rooms devolves upon the housemaids, while the parlourmaid is occupied more particularly with the china, silver, and glass and the dusting and arranging of the sitting rooms. In the case of a butler being kept the silver would pass into his hands; but if only a youth as page, it is better to let the parlourmaid take this in charge. Putting the table linen in the press, keeping the sideboard in order, and placing any ornaments about the room in their respective places all falls to the parlourmaid, while the housemaids will be occupied with keeping the bedrooms ready for use, and the lavatory and rooms generally, in a proper state of cleanliness.
The Visitors’ Bell should be answered by the page, if one is kept, or by the upper housemaid, if only female servants. In any case this should be done with the greatest speed, not only as a convenience to the caller, but as a mark of respect. The page would also assist the parlourmaid if waiting at table, and would be responsible for
FINDLATERS
keeping the fires properly mended in the winter.
The Servants’ Meals should be expected to be taken with the same regularity as you desire for your own. Unless a servant, who knows her work, can depend on her time not being broken in upon up to a certain hour, she cannot do her best.
The Prevention of Waste is, perhaps, the most difficult thing a wife can set herself to accomplish. It is well known that those who have little of their own are least careful of the goods of others, and the persons whose diet is of the most spare character when provided by themselves, are the most fastidious when it is provided for them.
To exact obedience it is essential that the orders given should be reasonable, and some degree of thoughtfulness for the convenience of others shown. The master or mistress who consults only his or her own convenience may obtain what they require for the moment, but it will be at the expense of the neglect of some other duty.
Punctuality must be observed to be obtained. The hour at which the servants’ bell is rung for them to rise must not vary. You cannot complain that servants do not rise at the proper hour if you yourself are unable to awake at that hour to call them. If you order dinner for seven, but do not arrive in the dining-room until half-past, you need not be very surprised if the next time you bring a friend home you have to wait till eight o’clock before dinner is announced.
A time for everything is absolutely needful if you wish to be able to get through life easily. Certain rooms should receive special attention upon certain days. Every portion of the day should have its allotted duty and the person to perform it. If the whole household work with regularity, ample time for recreation for each will be found, instead of servants always appearing busy each will have leisure and, indeed, fewer will be required. People take away impressions of their friends from the appearance of the maid who opens the door to them. A plain print uniform dress should be worn by the servant or servants in the morning, and black in the afternoon.
Definite instructions should be given every morning concerning the work of the day. Subsidiary orders must necessarily be given as occasion arises, but, if possible, they should be given each morning at a stated time. This will allow servants, who have any head upon their shoulders, to do their work with intelligence, and will be easier for themselves, while the work will be more efficiently performed.
Visits to various parts of the house should be made at stated times, for if it is made capriciously and with the view of catching the servants, a mutual lack of confidence
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
will be established, and the servants will hurry over the parts most likely to catch the eye, hoping thereby to avoid censure. Endeavour to establish between yourself and your servants a feeling of confidence, a knowledge of certain censure if work be ill done, and of praise if satisfactorily performed.
Amusements are necessary for servants as for other human beings, and they undoubtedly do their work better for an occasional change. It has not been found a bad plan to take seats for as many as can be spared at concerts which may be given, or at theatres for plays which are approved, a few times in the course of the year. It is better that servants should attend such amusements as you can approve, than that they should gain access to places of amusement of which you strongly disapprove.
A Night Out is another question most mistresses have to come to some decision about, and, no doubt, a great deal may be said upon both sides of the question. In the country, servants get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and do not need extra time, nor, indeed, ask for it. But in the town one can well understand how strong the wish for change and, indeed, how physically necessary it is. But this change and exercise is not best obtained at night. A whole day shall be granted to them once a month, which they shall be allowed to spend exactly as they wish.
The Children’s school hours ought on no account to be broken in upon. The nursery should, indeed, never be visited, except for urgent reasons, while lessons are in progress. The governess cannot hope to obtain their attention if they are distracted by other members of the family passing to and fro. Young children should never be expected to do lessons in the morning, that being the time when the air is most
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important for them. Both their brains and bodies will be invigorated by outdoor exercise when fine.
The Children’s Meals, if taken in the nursery, must be arranged with due regard for the age of the children, and the time must be strictly adhered to by both the cook and the nurse. Punctuality on the part both of the cook and the nursemaid is of the utmost importance, or the health of the little ones will suffer.
Dusting the Drawing-room should be the special care of the mistress. Valuable articles of vertu are frequently placed there, and much damage may easily be done through ignorance if left to a servant, besides which, the arrangement of flowers and ornaments have not that air of taste which can only be imparted by the touch of the lady who takes an interest in her surroundings.
Furniture Polish should be kept under lock and key if you wish to keep your furniture in good condition. If it is kept where servants can get it when they wish they will inevitably use it, but, eventually, the cabinet-maker will have to be called in to explain how it is the furniture looks so bad.
The General Cleaning Day should be a day unknown in a properly ordered house. There should be no day in the week on which visitors or friends cannot be seen should they call. If the various rooms are carefully attended to every day, all the furniture rubbed as well as dusted, there will be no accumulation of dust and dirt leading up to a grand cleaning day, which throws all the usual arrangements out of gear, and thoroughly disorganises the maids.
Window cleaning is in many houses very difficult. Architects seldom give a thought as to how the persons who will live in his house will accommodate themselves in his vagaries. The state of the Coal Cellar is a sure indication of the way in which the general management of the house is conducted. Show me a coal cellar with the blocks neatly packed and the small swept into a heap apart, and I will undertake to say that the rest of the house is in equal order. A coal-cellar with the blocks and small coal intermingled, with no clear place upon which to break the blocks, is a guarantee that if you examine the corners of the rooms or the top of the beading round the doors dust and dirt will be found in abundance.
Servants’ Work: to plan it out
I have often heard of the necessity for making out a list of work for the servants to follow every day and every week, and I consequently have decided to give one for daily work that has worked well, and also append a list for a fortnight’s work, for a family of four, where a cook and house-parlour-maid are kept. A copy of each, written out distinctly on a strong card, is given to each new maid when she enters the service. This is the cook’s daily card:
| 6.30 | Light kitchen fire, and make the water hot for baths. Sweep and dust diningroom, opening windows, and lay kitchen breakfast. |
| 7.45 | Dining-room and kitchen breakfast. |
| 8.30 | Clear breakfast table, and take up crumbs in dining-room. |
| 9.00 | Settle with mistress about arrangements for lunch, dinner, and next morning’s breakfast. |
| 9.30 | Clean doorsteps and hall. |
| 10.00 | Special work of day. |
| 1.30 | Dining-room lunch and kitchen dinner. |
| 2.15 | Wash up. |
| 4.30 | Kitchen tea. |
| 7.30 | Dinner. |
| 9.00 | Kitchen supper. |
| 10.00 | Bed-time. |
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
9, Leinster
Street,
1893–1969
9,
Rathmines
Terrace,
1839–1969
(Later
renumbered
302, Rathmines
Road)
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Housemaid’s Daily List
| 6.30 | Open windows in drawing-room; sweep & dust that room and stairs. |
| 7.00 | Take bath-water to bedrooms, and call everybody. |
| 7.15 | Lay breakfast table. |
| 7.45 | Dining-room breakfast and kitchen breakfast. |
| 8.30 | Go to bedrooms, open windows, turn down beds, and empty basins. |
| 9.00 | Make the beds, dust the rooms, afterwards do special work of day. |
| 1.00 | Be dressed for afternoon, and lay luncheon table. |
| 1.30 | Lunch and kitchen dinner. |
| 2.15 | Clear away lunch, and wash glasses and silver. |
| 4.30 | Kitchen tea. |
| 5.00 | Drawing-room tea. |
| 7.00 | Lay dining-room cloth. |
| 7.30 | Wait at dinner. |
| 8.30 | Wash up glasses & silver, dessert plates, ice plates & finger glasses. |
| 9.00 | Kitchen supper. |
| 10.00 | Bed-time. |
This list is not exactly as the laws of the Medes and Persians, but can be altered to suit varying circumstances. Only on very few days are there ice plates to wash up, for instance, but they are included in the list, so that when they are used the house parlour- maid may know that it is her business to wash them.
Cook always answers the hall-door up to lunch-time, but on the day when she turns out the servants’ bedroom, the housemaid, who is on that morning cleaning plate in the kitchen, is ‘on’ the hall-door. The following list shows an arrangement that has worked fairly well in one household, and may be of use to inexperienced young wives:
Housemaid’s Work List:
First Week:
| Monday | Turn out best bedroom and dressing-room. |
| Tuesday | Turn out second best bedroom and dressing-room. |
| Wednesday | Turn out drawing-room, with cook’s help. |
| Thursday | Clean plate. |
| Friday | Do stairs down thoroughly. |
| Saturday | Clean all brasses, door-handles, chests of drawers etc. all through house. |
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Second Week:
| Monday | Turn out two smaller bedrooms. |
| Tuesday | Turn out two more bedrooms. |
| Wednesday | Help cook with dining-room. |
| Thursday | Clean plate. |
| Friday | Do stairs down thoroughly. |
| Saturday | Turn out third sitting-room. |
Cook’s Work List*:
First Week:
| Monday | Wash towels, socks, and flannels. |
| Tuesday | Mangle, air, and iron washing. |
| Wednesday | Help housemaid turn out drawing-room. |
| Thursday | Turn out her bedroom. |
| Friday | Clean down hall and kitchen stairs. |
| Saturday | Clean kitchen and scullery. |
Second Week:
| Monday | Wash towels, socks, and flannels. |
| Tuesday | Mangle, air, and iron washing. |
| Wednesday | Turn out dining-room, with housemaid’s help. |
| Thursday | Clean all the cupboards. |
| Friday | Clean down hall and kitchen stairs. |
| Saturday | Clean kitchen and scullery. |
This plan of work, it will be seen, is arranged to suit a family where early rising is the rule. Breakfast at a quarter to eight leaves a nice long morning wherein to accomplish the daily task of cleaning necessary for keeping a house in order. With the meal even an hour later, it would be difficult to fit it in, and to leave the afternoon free for servants to rest, and have a little time for themselves, to darn their stockings, mend their clothes, write letters, or otherwise amuse themselves in their own way.
This leisure time should be spent in the kitchen and it should be made a rule that the maids should both be dressed and tidy before they settle down to enjoy their time of rest. They cannot go on working all day, and it is far better to arrange a little offtime for them than leave them to snatch it when they can. It is more comfortable for them, and it saves friction.
A household in which the afternoons are given to the servants for their own occupations is almost sure to be one where they remain long, and do their best to please, for they know very well that such consideration is not always meted out to them. And they appreciate it. How can they fail to do so?
I have seen so many unsatisfactory servants turned into satisfactory ones by having their work planned out for them, and their time measured out to it, that I am con-
* In addition of course to the actual cooking.
FINDLATERS
67 South Great
George’s
Street
1849‒1969
28 and 30
Upper Baggot
Street
1890‒1969
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
vinced it is the only way to make the household machinery work smoothly. The servants soon begin to like it. They find that if they are thrifty with the flying minutes in the mornings, they have good, solid blocks of time all for their own use in the afternoons. If cook is firmly, though gently, induced to get all her preparations for meals made as soon as possible after breakfast, she will soon find that it is to her own advantage to do so, and she begins to fall into habits of regularity that are a joy to her mistress and a pleasure to herself.
John and his eldest son Adam had expanded the firm rapidly during the latter part of the century. Branch houses were opened in the city and suburbs: 1879 in Blackrock, 1890 in Baggot Street, 1893 in Leinster Street near Lincoln Place, 1896 in Thomas Street, 1897 in Sandymount, 1898 in Howth and Dalkey, around 1900 three hotels, the St Lawrence in Howth and the Royal Hotels in Bray and Howth. Then in 1901 a branch house in Bray, 1904 Foxrock, known as The Gables, and in 1906 Dorset Street.
The 1890s saw the zenith of John’s career. From a modest yet significant inheritance he had built up an organisation which was now poised for a flotation on the stock market. His shops were prominent landmarks throughout the city and suburbs and were part of the citizens’ everyday lives. The city’s main social journal was backed by the company and often contained Findlaters’ full price list. The family were foremost amongst the merchant and professional class. Billy was at the top of the legal profession, the brewery was second only to Guinness, Adam junior was a recognised public figure as chairman of Kingstown Town Commissioners and a prominent Southern unionist. He was also newsworthy as chairman of two variety theatres and a distillery, as well as being managing director of Findlaters. John’s son Willie was also in the news, as president of the Grocers Federation of the United Kingdom, whose annual conference was held in Dublin for the first time in 1898. Sons Herbert and Charles were young men about town, Herbert a solicitor and Charles as an engineer and prominent in the bicycle and early motor trade.
The headquarters in Upper Sackville Street, nos. 29 to 32, was a large establishment, a great hive of activity, incorporating wine cellars, whiskey bottling, beer bottling, dry grocery storage, account handling, and stabling for a large team of horses. All that in addition to the retail departments. In 1897 the trade paper, The Grocer and Oil Trade Review (27 February 1897) described a conducted tour:
The commodious and extensive premises of the head office are replete with every luxury and managed with the utmost ability. The ground floor is occupied by the counting house, order counters and retail departments. At the rear of this building are the extensive stores from which are supplied the various branch establishments. In all these departments are to be seen a large staff all working as busy as bees, and three large hydraulic lifts are kept in perpetual motion connecting the cellars with the store lofts.
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All the premises are lit throughout with electric light which is supplied from plant on the premises. The stables and harness room of this establishment are well worthy of a visit and a model of perfection. There are to be seen more than thirty well-bred horses that are always on the road delivering goods in the surrounding districts.
However all this expansion was demanding on capital, and the minute book of the firm’s bankers, the Royal Bank, records that John Findlater had a series of interviews with their managing director in 1898. The bank estimated the firm’s capital value at £85,000 [€10.5m], and raised their overdraft limit to £10,000 [€3.7m] to enable three shops to be added to the existing seven. At this time the firm was still a partnership, and the new organisational form of limited liability was becoming increasingly fashionable, having lost its earlier rather dubious image.*
There were two strong reasons why Findlaters should have considered this route. The first was to fund the rapid expansion of the branch network. They had negotiated a facility with the bank, but the preferable option was to raise finance through the stock market, so it was decided to incorporate and float the company. The prospectus noted that ‘the branches at Thomas Street and Sandymount were opened about the latter end of 1896, and that of Howth about the middle of 1897, and the losses arising in connection with these Branches, and an exceptional loss in another Branch, have all been charged against Revenue for the year ending 28 February 1898’. Further branch openings were contemplated after the flotation. The other reason was that John was getting on in years and there would be inevitable estate problems.
On top of this the firm seemed to act as financial managers for various members of the extended family. Money was deposited with the firm, and interest paid, usually at the rate of 4¼ per cent; this was quite a normal source of corporate finance at the time. Findlaters’ ledgers show deposits by Sir William Findlater, Sir John Nugent and others, including ‘Young Men’, presumably staff actually working in Findlaters who deposited their savings with the firm. This practice extended over time to the firm performing various tasks for the depositors. For instance Mrs Blythe, Adam’s merry widow, was sent regular lengthy accounts showing her income from investments and deposits, John’s son, his namesake in America, got advances (all carefully accounted for) for oil exploration, and young Dr Alex, who had just taken up a post in Edgeware and played a good game of polo had his own accounts:
Paid
to P. Rogers
for Bay
Mare, 5
years old £50
[€6,200]
paid
to P. Rogers
for livery
of Black Gelding
43 nights @ 3s
= £6.
9s
and
for 2 sets shoes
10s and
clipping 4s
freight
on horse to Euston
£3 12s;
and from Middlesex
£3 12s
Dr Alex’s account was debited with two cash orders totalling £500 [€61,100]
* When limited liability was first made possible, conservative businessmen regarded it as no more than a declaration in advance that the promoters had no intention of paying their debts!
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Profit and loss analysis 1896
Balance Sheet 1896—note that two–thirds of the capital before the flotation was contributed by ‘Sundry Depositors’
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The Gables, Station Road, Foxrock, 1904-1969
2, The Green, Sandymount, 1897-1969
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
and debited with interest to date, at 5 per cent per annum. He later redressed the balance on the account by selling one of his mares, Ruby, to P. Rogers for £65 [€8,000]. The establishment of a limited company meant that the non executive members of the family had in future to manage their own affairs, as John was obliged to remind America John some years after the flotation. All in all it was a propitious time for the company to float.
This period was an explosive time for the Dublin stock exchange. The quoted capital on the exchange rose from £7.25m [€920m] at the beginning of the decade to £17.2m [€2184m] at the end of the decade.3 145 new companies sought listings in 1897 alone. It is interesting to reflect on the profits reported by well known firms in 1899, and in particular the prominence of, for instance, department stores, in the listings. The net profit is as reported in the Irish Investor’s Guardian and is before dividend, reserve funds and depreciation reserves.
| Company | Profit | 2013 equiv |
|
| Arthur Guinness | 812,699 | [€105m] | Brewer |
| Royal Bank of Ireland | 45,226 | [€5.72m] | Bank |
| Irish Times | 28,062 | [€3.56m] | Newspaper |
| Johnston Mooney & O’Brien | 19,705 | [€2.50m] | Millers/bakers |
| Alex. Thom | 14,551 | [€1.84m] | Printer/publisher |
| Thomas Heiton | 14,082 | [€1.80m] | Coal importer |
| Arnotts | 13,175 | [€1.67m] | Department store |
| Pims | 12,572 | [€1.59m] | Department store |
| Bolands | 11,625 | [€1.48m] | Millers/baker |
| Todd Burns* | 11,050 | [€1.40m] | Department store |
| Findlaters | 10,087 | [€1.29m] | Wines,spirits,grocer |
| A. Millar | 9,926 | [€1.26m] | Tea, wine and spirits |
| Thomas Dockrell | 9,736 | [€1.24m] | Builders providers |
| Brooks Thomas | 9,521 | [€1.10m] | Builders providers |
| Hely’s | 8,842 | [€1.13m] | Stationers/printer |
| Switzers | 8,808 | [€1.10m] | Department store |
| Cannock | 8478 | [€1.08m] | Department store |
| J. G. Mooney | 8,164 | [€1.03m] | Licensed vintners |
| A. & R. Thwaites | 7,774 | [€0.99m] | Mineral water |
| Crowe, Wilson | 7,084 | [€0.89m] | Clothing warehouse |
| McBirney | 5,781 | [€0.73m] | Department store |
| H. Williams | 5,755 | [€0.73m] | Grocers/tea merchant |
| Merchants Warehousing | 5,363 | [€0.68m] | Corn stores |
| Dolphin Hotel | 4,038 | [€0.51m] | Hotel |
* 1900 figures. They had an exceptional loss in 1899
Source: Irish Investor’s Guardian 1899/1900
The company was floated on the stock market on 17 March 1899, St Patrick’s Day. Stokes Bros. & Pim, chartered accountants, reported in the prospectus that
FINDLATERS
the net profits for the central establishment in Sackville Street and the branches in South Great Georges Street, Blackrock, Leinster Street, Thomas Street, Sandymount, Howth, Rathmines, Kingstown and Baggot Street were as follows, as at 28 February:
| 1894 | £12,936 | [€1.64m] |
|
| 1895 | £13,555 | [€1.71m] |
|
| 1896 | £12,756 | [€1.62m] |
|
| 1897 | £11,562 | [€1.468m] |
|
| 1898 | £10,087 | [€1.281m] |
|
The statement continued: ‘in arriving at the above-mentioned profits no charge has been made for interest on Capital, or for remuneration of the Partners for their services; but all other charges, including, in our opinion, a sum sufficient to cover depreciation, have been included.’ Interestingly, the company was floated on falling profits arising from the costs of opening new branches.*
The new company acquired the property and business of Alex. Findlater & Co. from the family. The prospectus, which was a much simpler document than would be acceptable today, gave the reasons for forming the company as ‘for many years the business has been actively managed by Mr Adam S. Findlater, assisted for several years by Mr William Findlater. Owing to the advancing years of the Senior Partner of the firm (Mr John Findlater) and for other family reasons, it has been considered desirable to convert the business into a limited liability company.’ The newly formed company acquired the business and assets for £175,000[€22m]. The vendors (i.e. John, Adam and Willie) guaranteed the value of the stock book debt, but any surplus over valuation was to be refunded to them. The properties were valued by two well-known valuers Battersby’s and North’s, and fixed at the average of the two. The price comprised:
| Assets—freehold and leasehold |
|
|
|||
| Freehold and leasehold premises | £52,228 | [€6.64m] | |||
| Fixtures and fittings | £7,334 | [€0.94m] | |||
| Horses and vehicles etc | £2,081 | [€0.26m] | |||
|
|
£61,643 | [€7.84m] | |||
| Assets—floating |
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
£84,000 | [€10.66m] | |||
| Total | £145,643 | [€18.50m] | |||
| Goodwill | £29,357 | [€3.70m] | |||
| Total assets acquired | £175,000 | [€22.2m] |
The acquisition of the Findlater family interest was financed by the following:
| 11,000 ordinary shares @ £5 | £55,000 |
|
| 11,000 preference shares @ £5 | £55,000 |
|
| 13,000 4% debenture in £5 units | £65,000 |
|
| Total | £175,000 |
[€22.2m] |
* Craig Gardner tendered for the flotation work in 1894 at a fee of £2,750 [€350,000], but were obviously not accepted, despite the family connection with Robert Gardner. Stokes Bros & Pim are now KPMG and Craig Gardner are PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
As was common with flotations at that time, the ordinary shares continued to be held by the founding family. Preference shares and debenture stock were offered to the public and quoted on the Dublin stock exchange. In the event the family held a sizeable number of preference shares and some of the debenture stock.
So far, so good, but the first decade as a listed company was not so easy. In 1905 a further tranche of debenture stock had to be issued. In 1909 and again in 1914, the capital of the company had to be written down.
‘You cannot sell unless you know what you are selling’ Adam Findlater 1902
At the beginning of the new century, the company held a staff conference. The speeches of John’s sons, Adam and Willie, then managing director and assistant managing director respectively, give an insight into the style and concerns of the company. Opening the session, the forty-seven-year old Adam observed that such a meeting was common practice in America, but not on this side of the Atlantic: ‘I learn with some surprise that a meeting such as ours, though novel in this country, is quite common in America, and in the latter country it is a very usual practice indeed for the heads of firms to meet their employees and exchange ideas. I need scarcely point out to you that the system is one which is well calculated to result in advantage to both employer and employed.’
The conference was held in the Gresham Hotel on 28 November 1902. Adam took the chair and opened the meeting:
The first thing I wish to say to you is to express my very deep regret that my father—the Chairman of the Company, Mr John, is not here to-night. When we recollect that he is seventy-five years of age, and has been at the business for sixty-one years, I think you will agree with me in saying that it would have been very interesting to have heard some reminiscences from him of the periods when he was apprentice, assistant and manager of Alex Findlater and Co., without the ‘Limited’.
He then got down to business, starting with the crucial customer contact:
You cannot sell unless you know what you are selling, and nothing looks more awkward or miserable than an unfortunate man who has neglected to learn his prices, squirming like a worm behind a counter when a customer asks a simple question, and displays more knowledge of the goods than the individual who is there to sell them.
It is also most important that counter hands should learn the correct names and addresses of the customers, as nothing is so annoying to old customers as to be asked their names continually and treated generally as if they were strangers in the house.
I propose to adopt a system which will weed out those who do not know the prices. On this day week an examination will be held on the price list, and sealed papers will be sent to each branch. We will settle on a set of prizes for good work, and we hope that bad work will not exist. Every person dealing with retail figures will have to go in for this examination.
FINDLATERS
(The no-nonsense tone and sharp sales orientation would undoubtedly have dismayed some of the firm’s more genteel customers.*)
When I look back and remember coming almost as a small boy in the year 1870 to Sackville Street, and think how I have seen the business of the firm growing bigger and expanding, year after year, it does seem to me that Alex. Findlater & Co. have plenty of vacancies for men on their staff. The man who is fit for the position is the man who will obtain it, and who is bound to get on well in life.
I intend now to go through our wine list and give you some reasons why Alex. Findlater & Co. can cater for the public more successfully than a great number of firms.
You are aware that a circular was issued a short time ago to the public with the information that Alex. Findlater & Co. were the largest bottlers of Bass and Stout in Ireland. If asked why the bottled porter is the best, you can give as reasons—good corks, clean and reliable bottles, and reliable stuff that has been properly treated. What I say of Guinness’s Stout applies very much more to Bass. If there is one thing more than another that needs care and watchfulness, and requires years upon years of experience it is the proper treatment of beer. The beer-drinker quickly recognises the difference between a bottle of beer thick and muddy and that which is sparkling and fresh. I think it is easy to explain these points to the public, and to speak of our undoubted success in this branch of our trade. As you know we import our cargoes of Bass’s April and October brewing regularly to Kingstown Harbour.
You are also aware that about two years ago I visited Oporto. I went up the Douro for a couple of hundred miles and saw all the different vineyards. Through the fact of going up the country away from the shippers in Oporto, and getting into touch with the owners of the vineyards on the banks of the Douro, we succeeded in saving a very large intermediate profit. The result is that, at the present moment, I really believe no firm in Ireland, and few in England, have bought port wine so advantageously as we did. We bought direct from the vineyard—from the grower—and then the casks of wine came direct here from the country, only passing through Oporto for the purpose
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Pictures taken by Adam on his visit to Oporto in 1900
of shipping. Speaking of our thirty-six shilling (36s) Invalid Port, I am glad to tell you that we have been able to give a very large advance in quality. We have also secured large quantities of tawny wine, the same as that supplied to the King of Portugal for which our price is 48s shillings to the public, fresh from the wood. If the customer wants a fuller-bodied port, let him go to the vintage ports. The 1887 port, for which we charge fifty-four shillings, is the same as that supplied at the King’s table. We have a large stock of it.
At this point Adam gave a tasting to illustrate the different qualities of wines. His expertise in this matter was well recognised; in 1908 he was one of the jurors appointed by the Wine and Spirit Association as the only Irish representative sampling between five and six thousand wines, spirits, beers and aerated waters for the Franco-British Exhibition.
He then continued:
The draught wines are the most economical for the customer, as they leave no glass of ‘muddy’ wine behind, but for the connoisseur who wants a very old wine, and one which retains a considerable amount of bouquet, old bottled wine may be more what he requires.
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Port had two images in 1902: as a toper’s tipple leading to gout, and as a valuable part of the pharmacopeia. Invalid Port as such was first marketed by Gilbeys in 1889.
Hocks and Moselles are frequently stated to be summer drinks, but Moselle is a very much more refreshing drink than Hock. Indeed, for a refreshing drink Moselle is the proper one. Sparkling Moselle and Still Moselle are as different as chalk is from cheese, the Sparkling Moselle being flavoured with Muscatel.
On the question of so called ‘New World Wines’ he advised:
In the old days the grapes were picked by women and children, who emptied them
* Two years after this, the Daily Mail noted a growing trend in favour of claret: ‘Is it the entente that is doing it? Claret, so people in the wine trade tell you, is a returning vogue, and is elbowing on one side other wines—more particularly Moselles and Hocks—which for a season threatened a serious rivalry with the beautiful wine of Bordeaux . . . a few months ago “The Lancet,” pointed out the benefits that would accrue from the more general consumption of sound wines of this kind. The family doctor who would nowadays suggest Hocks or Moselles in place of a good claret of even the humbler growths would be hard to find.’ October 25th 1905.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
into baskets. They were then carried on the backs of men to bullock carts, which conveyed them to the pressoir. Then you would see men with their trousers tucked up, treading the grapes until the juice drained out into the vats. And in my apprentice days it was the custom to carry the coopers of wine from the cellars—in fact, do porters’ work—label, bottle, cork, in fact, go through all the departments.
On the question of stocks to back up trade he continued:
Just remember that our stock of John Jameson is worth about £50,000 [€5.95m], and with wines the total of our cellar stock in Sackville Place reaches about £80,000 [€10m] of bonded stock. When you go over our cellars and consider that the wine is lying there maturing, I think you will admit that Alex. Findlater & Co. are in a grand position to supply the public properly.
We have lately, as no doubt you have observed, introduced a new whiskey—our ‘eight-year-old’ John Jameson. That is, to some extent, a departure, as we used to prefer to sell our John Jameson whiskey without John Jameson’s name, simply because we felt that there was a great deal of difference in John Jameson’s whiskey distributed by other merchants in opposition to us according to the casks it has been stored upon. ‘Fine sherry’ casks mature old whiskey, and the result of us having a large quantities of sherry casks is that the whiskey matured in them is worth cent per cent more than whiskey matured in other casks. Owing to our supply of good casks, and the treatment the whiskey receives in that way, our eight year old John Jameson, our ‘V.S.O.’ and our ‘A1’ are cent per cent better than many whiskies I see around me. I do not say we have a monopoly of good whiskey, but I do say that we have consistently good whiskey always, and that is a very handsome monopoly to have. John Jameson’s have introduced a three star label, and any man down the country who sells Jameson’s whiskey can get the label. The casks may be good or bad, but the label is put on as long as the whiskey is the proper age and year. When we have a cask which has not matured properly, that cask is sold by public auction. John Jameson’s whiskey bearing our name and our labels is a guarantee of a different article from whiskey matured on poor and unsuitable casks.
Now we come to our old A1 Whiskey. It was introduced and started on its career by my late Uncle Alexander, and the quality has always been kept up to the very highest standard. We have had appreciations of our AI on many occasions, and in a spirit of business conservatism we have declined to label it with John Jameson’s name. Many who knew good whiskey, as whiskey, blessed it and swore by it. You need never be doubtful about inviting the attention of customers to it.
Twin-brother to the ‘A1’ is our ‘Best Old Irish’, on which you can always rely. If a man wants other than ‘A1’ you can sell him, at 21s, our Black Label, a six year old John Jameson, Findlater’s Bottling. This whiskey is in competition with Gilbey’s six year old J. J. Castle Brand.
Just let me give you an illustration of how you can push business. Suppose a man comes in to you, and returns an empty bottle in exchange, and you notice that it has a Gilbey’s label (one of the most honourable of our opponents), or any other bottler. You should ask him, ‘why don’t you try our John Jameson eight year old?’ If he were a
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Findlater’s Irish whiskey advertising 1902
pleasant fellow you can engage him in a chat, and gradually induce him to take a bottle of Findlater’s Jameson.
The man in our branch house, who sells Hennessy’s brandy when brandy is merely asked for, will know that there will be a black mark against his name. Our pink wrapper brandy is 20 per cent better than Hennessy’s Three Star. It is an old brandy matured in casks. Hennessy’s Three Star is, no doubt, well-known in public-houses, and if, for example, one was down the country and not sure of the drink, one would be on the safe side to take Hennessy’s.
Mr Willie, William Findlater, the thirty-five-year old assistant managing director, then addressed the meeting on the question of proprietary or branded groceries. This was the period when the great manufacturers of the twentieth century laid the foundations to their success. Foremost in Ireland were H. J. Heinz (then a premium priced brand) who had a comprehensive display of products in Findlaters Sackville Street as early as 1899. Our price lists included other branded goods, such as Nestlé, which only had a listing for condensed milk, Lazenby’s for chutney, pickles, sauces, potted meats and fish. The biscuit manufacturers
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
were well represented by W. & R. Jacob & Co., Huntley & Palmer, McFarlane Lang, and chocolates by Carrs, Rowntree, Fry, Cadbury, Suchard, and Meunier. Kelloggs were not to arrive until the late 1920s when the cereals gradually grew in popularity.
But by far the largest brand was Findlaters, which basically pre-dated all the major brand owners. The Findlater label was affixed to teas and coffees imported, blended and pack by ourselves, over sixty varieties of cakes manufactured in our Thomas Street factory, and as many varieties of sugar boilings also made there; squashes, cordials, vinegar, salad oil, and olive oil were bottled in the cellars and honey and golden syrup decanted into cans; herbs, spices, mustard and Indian curry powder were packed in the spice room in the lofts, as were baking powder, com flour, shell cocoa and marrow-fat peas; and our pickles (mixed, piccalilli, cauliflower, Chow Chow, walnuts, etc) were ‘prepared in wooden vessels, and with the finest malt vinegar’, as the catalogue put it. On canned and bottled foods we stated that ‘we derive our supplies from the source of production, thereby avoiding all intermediate and unnecessary expenses’.
The Findlater name was also on anchovies, capers, ten varieties of fruits in bottles, four available in magnum bottles; jams bore our name only, fifteen varieties in 4 oz and 8 oz pots, and in 2 1b and 7 1b jars. Jellies were Findlaters and Lazenbys, lime juice Findlaters and Roses, and Marmalade Findlaters and Keillers, In the non-food section ammonia, boot creams, black lead, furniture polish, knife powder, starch, varnish stains and soaps all had the Findlater branding. With the exception of the top Bordeaux chateaux and Champagnes almost all wines and spirits were bought in cask and sold under the Findlater label and guarantee.*
But for many years to come many basic commodities were distributed to the branches in bulk and weighed out at the counter. This survived as far as the 1950s because a pound loose was always cheaper than a pound pre-packed, and that mattered for many of our customers. In this group would be sugar, flour, rolled oats, rice, dried fruits for Christmas baking, and basics such as semolina, tapioca, and barley.
Willie had this to say:
I would ask you all to push Findlater’s Goods—first on account of their quality. We buy the very finest quality of goods obtainable, and as we buy in bulk we get them at fair prices, but quality is our first consideration.
One of the great alterations that have taken place in our trade is the number of proprietary articles that have been introduced of late years. There are many things to be said for and against this, but, as a rule, it does not tend to benefit the grocer or the customer. It does not mean that the customer is getting better value than if the selection of the brand is left to the grocer. When a demand is created for the goods by advertising the manufacturer is able to fictitiously raise the price of the article.
* Over ninety years later one celebrated supermarket proprietor, on seeing ALFA Rolled Oats in the company museum, commented: ‘I see that you were very early into own brands.’ To which I replied: ‘Not so, what you see are the original brands and not own brands.’ The goods sold under the various Findlater labels were the origin of the species!
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Findlater’s
claimed to be
the largest
bottlers of
Bass and stout
in Ireland in
1902.
Let us take the example of packet oats: Quaker Brand. A 6d. packet weighs about 2 lbs and is sold at 5½d. If a customer orders 2 lbs of our Flake Oatmeal he gets what I would consider a better article, fresher and made from Irish Oats, and would only pay 4d. and the profit to us is about the same. In the latter we are anxious to give the very best article in the best condition.
This brings up the question of packet goods, which is one of the curses of the trade, unless they bear our own brand. If this is encouraged much further it will mean the passing of the grocer, and he will be replaced by a mere hander-out of packet goods, or, we will have nothing but girls behind our counters, which may be unpleasant to many of the young men present! It is also a question whether the customer is getting better value as he must pay for the package; also packet goods are sold at so much a packet, not a lb. or 2 1b; in other words, in many cases there is short weight to make up for the extra cost.
The core of the grocers’ goods v manufacturers’ brands debate was firstly a question of profit, and secondly a question of de-skilling. Men who had served a seven-year apprenticeship, learning the many skills of the trade, did not relish
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Packets made up and filled in the grocery lofts in Head Office
being turned into stackers and servers of packets.
Fifty years ago proprietary articles were comparatively unknown, for then goods of every class were bought by bulk, and the grocers and their assistants handled, tested, weighed, and parcelled every article, gaining knowledge and expertness to their own and their customers’ advantage. But in the present day their shops are stocked with proprietaries, which deprive them of the interest, experience and profit which would be theirs were they packing the goods in the old way from bulk . . . grocers should seek to sell all goods that they stocked as their own, and not as if they were agents of those from whom they bought.
In his opinion grocers should not sell packeted or specially put up goods without in the first place having a satisfactory knowledge of their contents and quality, and in the second place unless such lines afforded them a proper margin of profit. (Applause)
Adam went on to stress what we now call the bottom line:
Do not forget that we are doing business for the purpose of making a profit. It is the net profit that decides the success of an enormous business such as ours. If we get a farthing extra for every 2s 1d, a halfpenny for every 4s 2d, or a penny for every 8s 4d worth of goods sold, that sum at the end of the year would amount to £1,500 per annum [€181,000], equal to a dividend of 3 per cent on the Ordinary shares of the firm. It is my intention to revive the practice of the firm before it was a Limited Company, (1899), and charge each branch 5 per cent against your profits on the capital you require for the carrying on the business.
I am proud of the firm, and it seems to me that I see more of Findlater’s delivery carts around Dublin than those of any other firm. An efficient organisation for delivery depends to a great extent on the care that is taken of horseflesh, and that is indeed
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Findlater’s grocery department 1899—the first display of Heinz goods in Ireland
Findlater’s original jam labels 1904
a most serious part in our business. Much waste is often caused by sending out men on unreasonable runs. I remember when I was an apprentice being put into delivery work and getting a map of Dublin and studying it thoroughly. I remember, with some friends in business, going around the whole city to learn where all the various places were.
It is an old rule of the firm that we have a fixed price for each article and that it can be had at the same price at any of our houses. This is an advantage to the public and prevents them being overcharged. I am told that the system of charging different prices holds with some of our large rivals, where the counter hand is instructed that if a welldressed customer comes in, that he or she is to be charged an extra halfpenny or pence, whenever the opportunity arises.
Willie then wound up the conference
You are working for a firm that is likely to be heard of in Ireland for many years to come. You are working for a firm that is determined to succeed, and that will do its duty to those who help it to succeed. Even on a Sunday when I call to see the Boss [Adam] he is always sitting at a table surrounded by the weekly returns.* I am immediately cross-questioned about the goings-on at one of our branches, or the behaviour of one of our staff. Let us all then join for the purpose of working for the firm while we are in it.>
Two years later the staff made a presentation to John and Mary in celebration of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. John wrote a rather wistful thank-you letter to each of the staff, personally addressed and signed: ‘I am now 76 years of age, and I entered the service of AF & Co as an apprentice when I was about 14 years old. Verily it is a long time to look back upon . . . I am glad to think that AF & Co is showing enterprise and push, I realise how much the firm is indebted to its able and intelligent staff in this regard. I thank you again and trust you may have a long and prosperous future before you when business shall have long ceased from troubling me, and I shall be at rest.’
* One wonders what Adam and Willie’s Presbyterian ancestors would have felt about this use of the Sabbath.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
John in 1880
John the risk taker
John is an enigma. Was he simply the kindly old man remembered by my aunts, the charitable, religious man who carefully recorded every jot of expenditure, the safe pair of hands who took over the business from his entrepreneurial uncle, and carefully built it up? He undoubtedly took his trade seriously: in 1882 he presented a long paper to the Presbyterian Youngmen’s society in Belfast on ‘Free trade, protection and fair trade’, in which he described at length the origins and background to the grocery business. The text began at the Norman Conquest of England and came right up to the nineteenth century.†
But the surviving ledgers suggest that he also had a bit of the gambler in him, engaging in a series of more or less risky investments.
In 1880 John, at the age of fifty-two, had assets of £106,000 [€11m]. These were spread between the firm, the distillery, George West and Daniel Lowrey (property and theatre), premises for the firm and investments, fifteen railway stocks and £3,000 [€300,000] in the Dublin Sugar Refinery. In the subsequent years he received a further inheritance from his Uncle Adam and sold his brewery interest to his cousin Billy for £20,000 [€2.2m], making a book loss on the transaction. In fact, if we are to read into an entry in Sir John Power’s diary of 27 August 1883, he felt a little hard done-by. His uncle Adam did not rewrite his will after the death of his brother Alexander, resulting in a court direction as to the distributions. Adam’s widow was doubly provided for, first by a sum set aside for a generous annuity and then by 50 per cent of the residual. The balance went to Adam’s fourteen nephews and nieces spread world-wide. John’s gripe, confid-
† Subtitled ‘A Sketch of the rise and fall of some of the restrictions imposed on Trade and Traders in England’ the text ran to 52 pages. It was published by Marcus Ward, London and Belfast 1882. John’s views are summed up on p49: ‘Free Trade is an attempt to follow the laws of nature; Protection, an attempt to improve on those laws—hitherto, as far as I can judge, an unsuccessful attempt’.
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ed to Sir John, was ‘he had to pay out of the Sackville St. concern to the family, half of which he thinks old Mr Adam would have left him had he made a will’.
However, let’s not cry for Great-Grandfather John, he was well enough off. In 1876 he started the risky journey with George West and Daniel Lowrey, the subject of Chapters 7 and 14. In 1880 he invested in the Dublin Sugar Refinery; it folded later in the decade but his son Adam made money selling it on to the Dublin City Distillery, and then lost heavily when the distillery went into liquidation in 1905. Such can be the roller-coaster of the risk taker.
Another investment has a salutary lesson for investors in mining both then and
Presented to John & Mary by the staff on the occasion of their golden wedding, 20 April 1904
Letter of appreciation from John to the staff
now. In John’s investment portfolio of 1889, in addition to the customary railway stocks, he held stocks in various mining companies: the Bonnie Dundee Gold Mining Co., the Sheba Gold Mining Co., the Eastern Mysore Gold Co., the Mosman Gold Mining Co., Goldfields of South Africa, and various copper mines. His portfolio in railways and mines amounted to some £40,000 [€5m] in 1889. He reviewed them annually and recorded the increases and decreases in value. In 1889 he took a heavy fall in the value of his Mexican railway stock and in most of the mining stocks.
It is every entrepreneur’s aspiration to be in at the start of a good venture, to be an original participator, rather than a passive investor when it gets quoted on the stock market. And so it happened for John and his son Adam in 1888. In that year, with Malcolm Inglis, the director of Heitons and brother-in-law of John’s wife Mary, John Jameson, head of the distillery and two members of the Tedcastle family, they invested in the Isle Royal Land Corporation Limited. The corporation was formed in London to purchase large tracts of
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
land on Isle Royale, State of Michigan, USA, amounting to 83,314 acres. The land was specially selected for its copper-bearing qualities, but the island turned out to have other potentially lucrative assets, as one of the directors reported in 1889: ‘We possess many magnificent harbours on the island, all of which possess good anchorage … and the expense of erecting steamboat wharves or piers would be trifling’. Even more optimistically he adds ‘I believe we shall be able to turn the great natural beauties and health giving properties of our harbours with their lovely wooded islets to great advantage, and that we shall make the island one of the great American summer resorts.’ He talked of building a first class hotel and selling building lots for summer residences.
John, taken at Bloemfontein, South Africa, November 1895
In 1890 The Wendigo Copper Company Limited was formed in London to purchase a large tract of land from Isle Royale ‘to prosecute mining and the development of its mineral and other resources’. Adam (Findlater) and Malcolm Inglis were directors. The following year Isle Royale reported that it had to take the entire consideration in fully paid shares, as Wendigo shares had not been fully subscribed for. The report also mentioned that Wendigo had purchased additional land from the State of Michigan at $10 an acre as against Isle Royale’s original purchase at $3½ an acre, which augurs well for the future. Wendigo commenced with a working capital of £40,000 [€5m] and in May 1891 Isle Royale raised an additional £15,000 [€1.7m] through a mortgage debenture. So far, so good.
From here on the mood turns more sombre. In November 1894 Isle Royale shareholders were informed that ‘Owing to the financial difficulties in the United States, the company has been unable to deal with the timber referred to in the last report’, and added that for the same reason ‘the negotiations entered into for the erection of the hotel . . . and the sale of land for summer resort purposes, have been unsuccessful.’ And at the same time the Wendigo shareholders were informed: ‘I found the financial position of the company so involved through the inability of Mr Hay to realise on the dock property and consequently to pay the outstanding liabilities. The fact of having no money to work with, and the severe depression in all branches of trade here—much aggravated by the big railway and other strikes—have very much handicapped me in the
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work of developing our property’. And remember the lovely wood that was to be such a bonus: ‘the forest fires commenced, and, as a result of an unusually long spell of drought, spread with such alarming rapidity, and over such vast areas, that timber speculators drew back in alarm.’ Furthermore the timber merchant who was to erect a large saw mill was unable to raise sufficient capital.
On the main raison d’être of the company, copper mining, he reported ‘nothing has been done in this direction’! Mr Houghton, who had an option to commence the mining, reported that he could find no one with courage enough to go into mining ventures with trade and mining so disorganised and depressed.
On agriculture he reported that ‘only very little fresh land was cleared this year, as none of the horses were left on the island this winter.’ When they were returned to the island the following spring, they were ‘in such miserable condition that they could do no work for some weeks. Consequently our farming operations were limited.’ He then talks optimistically of the excellent hay and vegetables they grow and there being a good market for them. ‘Our potatoes, turnips and carrots are equal to the finest I have ever seen.’ They also anticipated good revenues from fishing but alas had not the capital to acquire large enough nets for it to be successful.
The next Wendigo report to hand is for the year ended 31 December 1896.
The company being without funds with which to prove the mineral deposit, confidently believed to exist on your property, and Mr Houghton having returned the option to do so at his own expense, this very desirable operation has had to be abandoned. Under these circumstances Mr Feldtmann has devoted his energies in trying to make a satisfactory sale of the timber. It is much regretted that his efforts have been unavailing but he still holds out hope etc.
In 1900 the Isle Royale directors in their report for the year to end December 1899 said that their efforts to dispose of the property had been unsuccessful and the parties with the option on the timber had declined to proceed. The efforts to raise further funds through a second debenture had been unsuccessful ‘and the result is that the company have been without funds to pay either the US government taxes or the interest on the debentures.’
So ends the sad story of Wendigo and Isle Royale. I am sure that Adam visited the Isle as we know he travelled to Canada and America on business. John must have queried the loss of his investment since he received the following from the company [Isle Royale]: ‘In reply to your letter the object of the proposed scheme of reconstruction is to provide funds for paying off the debentures and other liabilities so as to give the Directors an opportunity of continuing their efforts to find a purchaser for the property. It is, of course, quite impossible to say what the prospects of success in this direction are. It may be sold at once or years may elapse before anything can be done. It is entirely speculative.’
How these investments affected John’s estate is not clear. We can however see his net worth fluctuating considerably during the 1880s. Starting in 1880 his cash book records his worth at £106,000 [€11m]; by 1882 it had climbed to
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
35 Castle Street, Dalkey 1898‒1969
28 and 30 Main Street, Blackrock, 1879‒1969
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£128,000. Then it takes a downturn, sinking to £99,000 in 1887, reviving slightly in 1888 and ending the decade at £95,000.
Telephone and electricity were the great practical marvels of the day. In 1880 John, William Martin Murphy* and others participated in the flotation of the Dublin Electric Light Company with a paid-up capital of £15,000 [just €2m].4 The company had a small experimental station in Schoolhouse Lane from which Kildare Street, Dawson Street and part of St Stephen’s Green were lighted with arc lamps on wooden posts and overhead wires. There was a station in Fade Street to supply the southside and one in Liffey Street to supply the northside of the city including Henry and North Earl Streets. The first electric light in Ireland was an arc lamp outside the office of the Freeman’s Journal in Princes Street, erected in 1880. By 1881 the company had 17 arc lamps in circuit and by 1882 this had increased to 114 with thirty customers. Supply of current was exclusively for lighting and the new service was, as yet, seen to offer little challenge to gas, even though a number of major companies, including Pims and Jacobs, and the School of Surgery, were linked up. (Lighting by gas is much older, of course. The Dublin Gas Light Company was instituted in 1821 and the Mansion House was lit by gas in 1824.)
Unfortunately the Electric Light Company was not a business success. In 1882 the Westminster parliament passed the Electric Light Act which limited the concession of supply by private enterprises to a maximum of seven years where the local authority granted the licence. This period was too short to justify the investment of further capital. The company was already electrically overloaded and only just paying its way. The directors put it in the hands of a liquidator who sold the plant to the Alliance Gas Co. who claimed that they were entitled to produce electricity under one of their own enabling Acts. Dublin Corporation disputed this. John lost £400 [€51,000] on this venture.
As we enter the 21st century, we live in exciting times, but so did John and his sons a century earlier. The internal combustion engine, pneumatic tyres, telephones, electricity and golf were all new. And John had his input. Let’s take golf
* It is interesting to see John and William Martin Murphy in partnership. Murphy was a staunch Catholic from Cork and one of the great entrepreneurs of the day. His empire included the Dublin United Tramway Company, electrified in 1896, Clery’s departmental store and the Imperial Hotel, both in O’Connell Street Dublin and the Irish Independent newspaper. His wealth came mainly as a tramway and railway contractor in Britain, Africa, South America and of course Ireland. He was President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in 1912-13 and led the counter-attack against the growing labour militancy of James Larkin’s Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union in the 1913 lockout. He was a good employer, provided housing for his workforce and above average wages. He was a man of tremendous vision and energy and in 1885 was elected MP for St Patrick’s Division Dublin. He was a director of the Hibernian Bank. See Thomas Morrissey William Martin Murphy Historical Association of Ireland 1997.
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
Dublin tram in Fry’s model railway exhibition in Malahide Castle (Photograph by Pat Langan The Irish Times)
first. The pioneer of modern golf in Ireland was Thomas Sinclair of Belfast. During frequent visits to Scotland he played at St Andrews as early as 1872 and became determined to introduce serious golf to Belfast. Golf had been played before this, by Scottish regiments’ officers based at Athlone and Limerick, but the course could only have been private grounds extemporised.
John was a founding member of the Royal Belfast Golf Club, as were the Right Hon. Thomas Sinclair, a Belfast provender merchant and the leading liberal Unionist and later Privy Councillor, Sir Edward Porter Cowan, William Q. Ewart, C. K. Cordener, Dr W. F. Collier, W. Murphy-Grimshaw, W. S. Johnston, John G. Brown and George L. Baillie. Sinclair was the first captain. The first meeting was on 9 November 1881 and thus the Royal Belfast Golf Club was born. The annual subscription was fixed at one guinea. The committee in Belfast got to work immediately and a six-hole course (later nine) was laid out.
The first competition was held on Boxing Day 1882 and even after allowing for the primitive clubs and golf balls of the period, the standard of play must have been somewhat less than spectacular. In the 18-hole stroke competition the three top prizes were won by players returning net scores of 121, 130 and 131 and the tail-enders came in at 200 and an incredible 228. This latter player is said to have been so ‘delighted’ with himself that he never played again. He quite clearly made the right decision! We have no record of John’s prowess on the course.
The game in Dublin was started by John Lumsden, of the Provincial Bank of Ireland’s office, College Green. The object, Lumsden said, would be to foster the good old Scotch game in Dublin where, he was sure, it would quickly become
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popular. The Dublin club was initially based in the Phoenix Park, moved to Sutton in 1886 and in 1889 established the famous links course on the North Bull Island, some four miles from the centre of Dublin. On 24 October 1885 the first golf match took place between the Royal Belfast Golf Club and the (Royal) Dublin Golf Club.
The Dublin Metropolitan Police had their own primitive telephone system from 1882. The system was called ABC; it was simple to operate, but costly to provide and maintain and required a high degree of skill in its adjustment. Two examples show that it did not give universal satisfaction. In November 1878, when a fire occurred at Maynooth College, a messenger was dispatched to the local post office to telegraph for the assistance of the Dublin Fire Brigade, but as a journalist wrote: ‘As is only too frequently the case when the wires are earnestly needed, they are found to be utterly useless . . . The instrument is out of order, Sir, and I cannot send your message was the reply of the fair operator at the Maynooth Post Office. The instrument was an ABC, the most worthless construction in the postal service and one which even when in apple-pie order, is not deserving houseroom in any office of a civilised country. The messenger had to go to Celbridge to get his message through.’5
Another occasion on which the ABC was found wanting was in July 1883. Findlaters had ABC circuits connecting the Sackville Street head office with branches at South Great Georges Street and Rathmines. A complaint was made about the working of the latter instrument and Mr Burge of the Post Office investigated. Mr Findlater complained that, ‘It has never given satisfaction and he would like to get rid of it if the Post Office could allow the contract to be broken’. On the previous day, the call bell had been ringing even though Sackville Street was not calling, and shortly afterwards they were unable to use the line for about a half-hour. Mr Burge pointed out that rapid and impatient working was most detrimental to the well working of the apparatus. Finally, he laid the blame at the door of the telephone company’s workmen. Findlater agreed to have the ABC circuit replaced by a Gower-Bell telephone connected with the telephone exchange, as the Sackville Street branch already was. Findlaters was subscriber No. 152 in the corporation list. In spite of these difficulties the ABC remained in service for many years, until 1928, at least. In that year what were probably the last two circuits were converted to telephone.
John’s generosity
John Findlater died on 8 January 1908 at the age of eighty. As so often, the newspapers carried obituaries which revealed the man behind the business leader. In an obituary, an author in the Belfast
GREAT-GRANDFATHER JOHN
John and Mary in old age.
Witness told this story:
A few years ago I received a short private letter from him, in which he stated that he would like to see me for a few minutes any day I chanced to be passing his place of business. My acquaintance with him at the time was slight, and I wondered very much what he wanted to see me for. In a day or two I called upon him, and he received me with the quiet and undemonstrative courtesy which marked the gentleman. He took me into his own private office, and after the ordinary inquiries about health, etc., Mr Findlater said to me—I notice that you have been expending a great deal of money on your church premises, and I thought I would like to help you if you would allow me.
I thanked him and explained in detail what we had expended, and what were our liabilities, and also told him that my present frame of mind was pre-eminently receptive. He then took his cheque book and wrote me out a very handsome cheque, and handing it to me across the table said—I am sorry it is not twice or three times as much, but if you are hard driven to liquidate the whole of your liabilities come back and tell me.
I accepted the gift, and I think it only right to add that during a long life of hard work in the Kingdom of Christ this incident stands out along with only three or four more as among the most Christ-like I have met with. It was not the amount of the subscription which most impressed me, although that was handsome. Neither was it the spontaneous way in which it was given. It was something more. It was the modest, unostentatious spirit in which the thing was done; the beautiful way in which Mr Findlater made you feel that he was not conferring a favour in giving so much as receiving a favour in my accepting; and the pleasure it seemed to be to him to be able to do something to lighten another’s burden, and to take a small part in work that might be useful. . . .
After that incident Mr Findlater and I became what might be called friends. In this imperfect world we meet with few so genuine and so modest. If he did not draw his life from the unseen Head of the Church he loved I do not know where he found it. His death removes one whose character I greatly loved and honoured, and I have no hesitation in saying that both our Church and our city are distinctly the poorer by reason of his departure.6
FINDLATERS
John’s will is brief; he leaves his house, Melbeach in Monkstown, to his wife Mary. There is no mention of his commercial concerns and investments and no executor’s account of his assets. His widow died in November 1917, and the contents of Melbeach, the house they had built up together, were auctioned by North’s. At this time the First World War was still in progress, and in Ireland Sinn Féin was noisily flexing its muscles prior to the shooting campaign which began in January 1919. This was therefore not a good moment to auction such items. Of his pictures, for instance, the top value was achieved by Erskine Nicol’s ‘Guinness’ best’ which fetched £75 [€4,000]. He had bought this painting in 1877 for £115. The total contents actually realised about £3,000 [€200,000] –top item was a ‘massive six-light glass chandelier’ with cut bowls and Waterford drops which achieved £129 [over €6,000].
Mary’s will gives us some idea of the tangle of her sons’ finances: ‘I have equal love for all my sons and in making the following distributions I am anxious that they and their families shall be dealt with equally as far as possible and I am bearing in mind their father’s request that I should remember the younger sons as he had done the elder ones. I bequeath to my son William the sum of eight hundred pounds [€50,000]. The following three amounts I direct to be liability of my estate: the eight hundred pounds owing by my son William to the estate of my son Herbert, the six hundred he owes to the Provincial Bank [€37,000] and for which some of the stocks of my son Herbert are lodged as security, and the eight hundred and fifty pounds he owes to Alex. Findlater & Company Limited for which I am security.’
She then divided the residue in seven equal parts between her surviving sons and the widows of Adam who died in 1911 and Herbert who was killed in Gallipoli in 1915. The legacy bequeathed to the estate of Adam was conditional on no claim being made by his estate against her estate, her late husband’s estate or her son William’s estate. In the event of such a claim she bequeaths Adam’s share to William. What are we to read into that? And so ended the great wealth created by Alexander and his brother Adam Seaton Senior and to a degree sustained by their nephew John. From here on the family are comfortable but not affluent.
Notes and references
- Brian Inglis, Downstart London: Chatto & Windus 1990 p 69
- Queen v Drury Queens Bench and Exchequer Divisions, vol 11, 1894. The case is discussed in W. N. Osborough, Law and the Emergence of Modern Dublin Dublin: Irish Academic Press 1996
- Tony Farmar A History of Craig Gardner Dublin: Gill and Macmillan 1985 p 71
- Maurice Manning and Moore McDowell The History of the ESB, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1984 p 1; and P. Harkin, ‘Electricity Supply in Dublin 1880-1930’, paper read 16 January 1940, ESB library; and ESB archive department, Harold’s Cross, Dublin
- Eircom archive
- ‘Our Dublin Letter’ The Witness, Belfast 17 August 1908