Swaine, Adeney, Brigg & Sons Ltd (1943–1990)
When Edward Swaine Adeney retired in 1949 he was succeeded briefly by Bertie Walter Brigg, and then from 1950 by Edward's only son Gilbert Latimer Adeney.
The firm continued to prize good design but embraced the use of new technologies and of some new materials. Nylon fabric replaced the hand-woven silk for the canopies of some umbrellas and at Zair's factory nylon increasingly replaced rare whalebone for the core of many whips made under the trade-mark "Sabson".
For Terence Young's film From Russia with Love (1963), Swaine Adeney Brigg made James Bond's briefcase, faithful to Ian Fleming's original 1957 novel: "Q Branch had put together this smart-looking bag, ripping out the careful handiwork of Swaine and Adeney".
For the 1961 British television series The Avengers Swaine Adeney Brigg made a custom Whangee umbrella featuring a sword hidden in the shaft.[4]
Gilbert's son Robert Edward John Adeney, who became chairman on Gilbert's retirement, was to be the last of the family to run the firm. With the expiry of Zair's factory lease in 1965, and the compulsory purchase of the factory in Newbury Street in London, Robert decided to consolidate all the company's manufacturing at one site in School Street at Great Chesterford, Essex.
In the 1980s the firm decided to open an American branch in San Francisco to meet the growing demand from America and contain the risk of currency fluctuations between the pound and the US dollar. The experiment was not successful and the San Francisco shop was surrendered.
The attempted expansion overseas coincided with the opportunity to acquire the lease on the shop next door at 186 Piccadilly, affording the firm a wonderful double frontage on Piccadilly. Unfortunately the firm overreached itself, moving too far away from its core strengths, and nearly collapsed. The firm found some financial relief when the Japanese conglomerate Fukuske Corporation paid £750,000 for a 20 per cent stake in the company.
A Swaine & Adeney shop was opened in 1989 in the fashionable Jingumae in the Shibuya ward, Tokyo.
That same year, Robert sold the firm's freehold factory at Great Chesterford and built a new 10,000 square foot factory nearby.
Although Robert had nursed the firm back into trading with a small profit, he and the Adeney and Brigg family shareholders decided in the summer of 1990 to sell their 80 per cent stake in the company for a reported £4 to £5 million. The new controlling shareholder was the Ensign Trust, the investment arm of the Merchant Navy Pension Fund.
