A chronological history of Samuel Gawith and Company
(after J.W. Dunderdale)

The history of the company begins, interestingly, not with a Gawith at all, but an enterprising Kendalian by the name of Thomas Harrison, who, aware of the popular interest, and associated commercial potential, of snuffs and tobaccos, removed himself to Glasgow to learn the trade of snuff making. He returned to Kendal in 1792 with not only knowledge of snuff making, but the means, also.

He had bought approximately 50 tons of second hand machinery, estimated to be manufactured around 1750, and transported it via packhorse, to a mill at Mealbank, on the river Mint, a few miles North East of the centre of Kendal. Although the building disappeared about fifty years ago, some of the machinery is still intact and in day-to-day use at the Brown House today. Indeed, in 1965, the industrial trade magazine "Design and Components in Engineering" judged it to be the oldest piece of industrial machinery still in regular production use - "The reason we feel confident in accepting the estimate of (at least) 210 years as being the age of the machine is that the central drive bevel wheels have wedged wooden teeth. Had cast iron gear wheels been available they would most probably have been chosen as the central drive members, and since they were available about 1760 it is safe to assume that the machine dates back to about 1750".

But enough about machinery, and back to the people who created the company. Shortly after establishing his new business, Thomas Harrison appears to have entered business with Thomas Brocklebank, a "chymist and druggist" of Kendal. At that time chemists would frequently sell tobacco and snuff (as opposed to those today who dispense nicotine patches!), so we can presume that the partnership was split evenly between production and retail. In this same year, 1793, Thomas Harrison's namesaked son was born and effectively took over the business after his father's death. Possibly it was this Thomas Harrison who bought 27 Lowther Street, around 1830, as both family residence and factory, as was the habit of the time.

By 1837, Thomas Harrison the second's eldest child, Jane, reached 18 and had fallen in love with a "plumber and glazier" of Kendal, one Samuel Gawith. Apparently against her father's wishes, the two married "over the anvil" at Gretna Green on 15 January 1838.

In 1841, Thomas Harrison died, leaving the premises, and his share in Harrison and Brocklebank, to Jane and her sister Ann. Consequently Samuel and Jane moved into Lowther Street, the former relinquishing his earlier trade and working alongside the elderly Thomas Brocklebank.

In 1842, Samuel Gawith (The Second) was born, and over the next 14 years 5 siblings followed.

Somewhere in the mid 1840s Thomas Brocklebank passed away, and when Ann Harrison died in 1852, the ownership of 27 Lowther Street, and by now the whole of the business, fell to the hands of Samuel Gawith.

In 1864, after serving some years as councillor, Samuel Gawith was elected mayor of Kendal, but suffered a personal tragedy also when Jane died on 3rd October. A year and six days later, Samuel followed his wife, to be buried together at the cemetery on Castle Street, a few minutes walk from the current company premises.

 

Samuel Gawith left the business, and the well being of the family, in the hands of 3 trustees, as Samuel the Second, already active in the business, was only 22. The trustees were Samuel himself, Henry Hoggarth and John Illingworth. Those familiar with snuff in the UK, and especially production within Kendal, will now recognise names associated with 3 seperate snuff manufacturers, and their significance will unfold in this text.

Henry Hoggarth was apparently a "land surveyor" of Kendal, indeed, of no.29 Lowther Street, so we can assume a friendship existed between him and Samuel the First, as well as some civic responsibilities that were shared between the two.

John Thomas Illingworth was the commercial traveller for Samuel the First, and had been for some 10 years at Samuel's death, himself then aged 35 years.

In greater detail, the business was now to be run by Samuel the 2nd, and the next eldest son, John Edward. John was only 18 (and therefore a minor at law) at the time, and his directorship had to be sanctioned by the Lord Chancellor. The property at Lowther Street was bequeathed to the other children as a home, for as long as they required it, provided Samuel and John had access to the business section.

In 1867, J.T. Illingworth left the company to set up on his own, building a factory on Sandes Avenue in 1869 and then moving to larger premises on Canal Head (literally next door to the Kendal Brown House!). 1931 saw the company cease tobacco production and become "Illingworth Snuffs Ltd." The premises were destroyed by fire in the early 1980s, after which the company continued in Kendal for a few more years before being bought up by Joseph Wilson's.

Back to Samuel Gawith.

The partnership between the two brothers worked for some years, but, not for the first time in a family firm and surely not for the last, Samuel and John decided that they would be best served by not working in partnership anymore and on 31st March 1878 an "agreement of seperation" came into effect. The premises at Lowther Street, and the mill at Meal Bank were to be split and that Samuel Gawith was to have the choice of which to possess. Samuel chose the mill, and Lowther Street passed to John E. Gawith, Tobacco Manufacturer.

Samuel must have found Mealbank, either in location or size, deficient, as he designed and built new premises - the current Kendal Brown House, and an adjoining private house "Greenbanks" (possibly he was fond of Kendal's colours-Kendal Green cloth was famous in the 1400s, Kendal Brown is a world renowned snuff) at the terminus of the Lancaster-Kendal Canal, in 1881.

Although the "Agreement of Separation" allowed Samuel and John to both produce tobacco and snuff, Samuel concentrated on snuff, John on "twist" tobacco. John, however, soon moved into production of snuff also, and acquired a water-driven grinding plant at Low Mills, just South of Kendal. It was possibly this rapid overexpansion that contributed to John's bankruptcy in 1885, at which Samuel bought John's goodwill, trademarks etc. John died seven years later, in 1892, one hundred years after Thomas Harrison established himself at Meal Bank.

Samuel could see the financial reward of continuing tobacco production, after buying up John's goodwill, and received a license to manufacture tobacco from the Inland Revenue on 6th July 1885. He also kept the Lowther Street premises.

In 1884, Samuel's Scottish wife gave birth to their first son, Samuel Anderson Gawith (Samuel the Third-his middle name coming from his mother's maiden name), brother to four older sisters.

Sadly, two years later, on November 27th, 1886, Samuel Gawith the Second died, aged 44. Apparently, the flag on the Town Hall flew at half-mast as a mark of respect. Respect, not necessarily or solely from his success as a local businessman, but also as a member of the "Westmorland Volunteer Rifles", a precursor to the present Territorial Army. He had joined on their formation in 1859 and held every rank from private in 1860 to major in 1878, and Honorary Lieutenant Colonel "for long service" in 1886. His military funeral was a great civic occasion, with over 200 members of the "Volunteers" in attendance.

Samuel the Third was two years and five months old at his father's death, and once again the company was put in the hands of trustees, probably Samuel the Third's mother, John Edward Gawith (who died six years later) and William Henry Gawith, Samuel the Second's youngest brother.

A word here about William, who set up in rivalry to the Samuel Gawith dynasty, about the time John's enterprise failed. He set up in partnership with Henry Hoggarth, whose sister he married. Together they purchased the Lowther Street tobacco factory, and made snuff at Marble Mills outside Kendal. The firm continues now as Gawith Hoggarth TT.

Samuel the Third took control of the company about 1904/05, and saw it's production increase during the First World War to meet growing demand - as the American General J.J. Pershing put it "You ask me what we need to win this war. I answer tobacco as much as bullets"

By 1920 new premises at Sandes Avenue, Kendal were opened, and the whole of the machinery transferred from Meal Bank, and adapted to power by electricity, rather than water.

In 1929, Derek Dakeyne-Cannon, Samuel Gawith's nephew became a shareholder, and was named Managing Director, Samuel being named Chairman.

At some time in the early 1930's there was further expansion, and Samuel Gawith took over the idyllically situated snuff mill of William Nevinson at Eamont Bridge, immediately south of Penrith. This had originally been a corn mill, then gunpowder mill, then from 1835 a snuff mill.

This ran in operation until about 1936-7, when, probably as a result of the change from snuff taking to cigarette smoking immediately after the First World War, operations at Samuel Gawith's were consolidated. Eamont Bridge and Sandes Avenue were closed and the Kendal Brown House expanded. For at least it's third time, the original four-pestle mill was dismantled, moved and re-instated. A tribute, indeed, to the undoubted craftsmanship and ingenuity of it's constructors.

Samuel Gawith the Third passed away in 1953, leaving his widow Louie as Chairman and Derek Dakeyne-Cannon as Managing Director.

The latter was succeeded on his death by Wilfred Lloyd Link, in 1961, and Derek's widow Edith Dakeyne-Cannon was appointed to the board as Chairman, and continues to this day as a director..

 

 

In 1979, Doug Harris, who joined the firm as a boy in 1935 (and served in the RAF with great distinction in the Second World War) became M.D. on the death of Wilf Link.

Picture above - Doug Harris

When Doug retired in the early 1990s, Graham Forrest (who like many of his predecessors started as a young man fresh from school, learning his trade in all the various departments of the factory) was appointed as Managing Director.

Right : Graham Forrest, picture by kind permission of Chuck Stanion, Pipes and Tobaccos magazine

And that brings us to the present time. In a shrinking world, ruled by technology, few enough products are manufactured in such a time-honoured and traditional way as the many varied snuffs and tobaccos of the House of Samuel Gawith.

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