J. Lyons and Co.

J. Lyons & Co. was a British restaurant chain store, food manufacturing, and hotel conglomerate founded in 1884 by Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein. Lyons' first teashop opened in Piccadilly, London in 1894, and from 1909 they developed into a chain of teashops, with the firm becoming a staple of the High Street in the UK. At its peak the chain numbered around 200 cafes.[1] The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with food choices consisting of hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls.

Making their first cakes and pastries in 1894, several Lyons cake products are still available on grocers' shelves, including Lyons' treacle tart, Lyons' Bakewell tart, Lyons' Battenberg, and Lyons' trifle sponges, which are sold by Premier Foods. The company is also known for its pioneering use of computers in the office.[2]

Origins and early history

The company began as a collaboration between a group of entrepreneurs, the professional artist Joseph Lyons and his brothers in law, Isidore and Montague Gluckstein, as a spin off from the Salmon & Gluckstein tobacco company.[3] In 1894 the company started a teashop in Piccadilly, London, and from 1909 developed this into a chain of teashops which would ultimately number around 200 locations.[1] The company also ran high class restaurants, founding the Trocadero in 1895, and hotels including the Strand Palace, opened in 1909, the Regent Palace, opened in 1915, and the Cumberland Hotel, opened in 1933, all in London. In 1918, to increase sales in northern England, Lyons bought the old established tea company Horniman & Sons.[4] From the 1930s Lyons began to develop a pioneering range of teas, biscuits and cakes that were sold in grocery stores across the world.[5] Lyons was appointed to run the company, and it was named after him.[3]

Products and image

The company was a substantial food manufacturer, with factories at Cadby Hall in Hammersmith, and from 1921 at Greenford, producing bread, cakes, pies, tea, coffee and ice cream. Lyons branded cakes included treacle tarts, Lyons Bakewell tart, Lyons Battenberg, and Lyons trifle sponges.[7]

To the public, J. Lyons & Co. were best known for their chain of teashops which opened from 1894 and finally closed in 1981, and for the Lyons Corner Houses in the West End of London.[8] The teashops provided for tea and coffee, with hot dishes and sweets, cold dishes and sweets, and buns, cakes and rolls. Lyons' teashops were slightly more up market than their ABC (Aerated Bread Company) competitors. They were notable for their interior design, from the 1920s Oliver P. Bernard being consultant artistic director. Until the 1940s they had a certain working-class chic, but by the 1950s and 1960s they were quick stops for busy shoppers where one could drink a cup of tea and eat a snack or an inexpensive meal. The teashops always had a bakery counter at the front, and their signs, Art Nouveau gold lettering on white, were a familiar landmark. Before the Second World War service was to the table by uniformed waitresses, known as 'Nippies

Other activities

Decline

The company was losing money in the 1960s but remained under the control of the Salmon family, descended from a founding partner. Lyons began to close some of its London tea shops and hotels; in 1963 it also merged its LEO Computers business with English Electric's computer interests to form the jointly owned English Electric LEO.

In 1964, Lyons sold their half-stake; and English Electric merged the company with Marconi's computer interests to form English Electric LEO Marconi Computers. A continuing problem in the British computer industry was both lack of investment capital and competition with the much larger U.S. computer companies, such as IBM. English Electric LEO Marconi Computers merged with other companies to form International Computers Limited (ICL) which was bought by Fujitsu in 1990.

In 1978, Lyons was acquired by Allied Breweries and became part of the resulting Allied Lyons. It fell on hard economic times in the late 1980s; and was sold, eventually being broken up with its ice cream and ice lolly products, which were branded as Lyons Maid, being sold to Nestlé

Advertising

On 31 December 1958, J. Lyons and Co broadcast a two-minute commercial on ITV whereby the company's chairman, Sir Isidore Gluckstein, addressed his customers, shareholders and staff to explain and illustrate the brand's aims of affordable prices, consistent high quality and service to the public.[20] Advertising historian Henry James describes this as an "imaginative use of television" to end the year and an "enterprising use of the medium".[20] Although the ad was greatly admired, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) were concerned that, if this technique developed, it could amount to an "invitation to invest" which was largely forbidden by television advertising principles, reminding them of Sir Bernard Docker buying advertising space to appeal for public support in his struggle for Daimler Company chairmanship in 1956. As a result, Sir Robert Fraser of the ITA declared that the only acceptable forms of advertising on ITV were those clearly intended to promote sales of the product or services in question, and that "[advertising] designed to influence public opinion during a takeover battle or a campaign against nationalization on behalf of private enterprise — however well disguised — would in future be disallowed."[20]

In 1994, Lyons Original Coffee hired the advertising agency Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters (DFGW), who created an innovative UK television advert that aimed "to turn a commercial break into a coffee break."

Notable employees

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher worked as a chemist for the company prior to becoming a barrister and then a Conservative Party MP. While working for the company she helped develop methods for preserving ice cream.[24]

Peter Bird began work operating the LEO computer and rose to be a director of Lyons Computer Services. He later wrote a history of the company and its computers.[25]

Leadership

The chairmen of J. Lyons were:[26]

• 1894–1917 Sir Joseph Lyons
• 1917–1922 Montague Gluckstein
• 1923–1928 Alfred Salmon
• 1928–1941 Sir Isidore Salmon MP
• 1941–1950 Harry Salmon JP
• 1950–1956 Major Montague Isidore Gluckstein
• 1956–1960 Isidore Montague Gluckstein
• 1960–1965 Barnett Alfred Salmon
• 1965–1968 Sir Samuel Isidore Salmon JP (Mayor of Hammersmith 1968/69)
• 1968–1972 Geoffrey Salmon
• 1972–1977 Brian Lawson Salmon

See also

• Horniman's Tea, once the largest tea company in the world, selling prepackaged tea, once owned by Lyons
• List of tea houses,
• J. Lyons and Co., Greenford

Further reading

• Bates, H. E. (1946). The Tinkers of Elstow: the Story of the Royal Ordnance Factory run by J. Lyons and Company Limited for the Ministry of Supply for the World War of 1939–1945. Privately published,
• Bird, Peter J. (1994). LEO: the First Business Computer. Wokingham: Hasler Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-9521651-0-4.
• Bird, Peter (2000). The First Food Empire. A History of J. Lyons & Co. Phillmore. Chichester, West Sussex. ISBN 1-86077-132-7.
• Ferry, Georgina (2003). A Computer Called LEO. Lyons Teashops and the World's First Office Computer. Fourth Estate. London. ISBN 1-84115-185-8. (Published in United States 2004, Hammersmith: Harper Perennial. ISBN 1-84115-186-6.)
• Caminer, David, John Aris, Peter Hermon and Frank Land (eds). (1996, 1998). User-Driven Innovation (published in the United States as LEO: The incredible Story of the World's first Business Computer). McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-009501-9,

External links

• (relating to the Lyons computerization)